NEVER SURRENDER

Never Surrender is possibly Triumph's most varied yet consistent and perhaps also their most progressive album overall. Like all of Triumph's works, this is still primarily a Hard Rock album, but this time they have chosen a slightly more sophisticated approach than on most of their other albums. The band's most undemanding and generic compositions are, thankfully, not to be found on this album (but, admittedly, their most progressive song is also not here). Even in the lyrics they manage to stay away from the worst Rock 'N' Roll standards and clichés.

The album starts with Too Much Thinking which is a good melodic Hard Rock song that runs for five and a half minutes. They use this space to include some nice guitar work. Triumph can never be accused of too much thinking, but they sure know how to play their instruments. With World Of Fantasy the tempo is slowed down a bit and they deliver here dynamic song with a strong vocal performance. A Minor Prelude is a classically inspired acoustic guitar piece of the kind that has become standard on the band's albums. Being a "prelude" this, of course, leads straight into the next song, All The Way, which is the album's most straightforward rocker and easily the least interesting song here. The chorus is quite tedious both musically and lyrically ? a very typical Triumph Hard Rock number. Battle Cry is a much better song that alternates between slower and more intense passages. This will hardly blow the Prog fan away, but it is a good song in my book.

Next up is an "overture" that introduces the title track. While hardly remarkable, this Overture surely raises the expectations for the rest of the album, but anyone expecting a Prog epic will be brought down to earth with Never Surrender. Despite a the instrumental middle section, it is basically another sophisticated melodic Hard Rock song, similar in style and quality to Too Much Thinking and World Of Fantasy - good, but hardly something to write home about. When The Light Go Down is worse! It has a short, folksy acoustic intro and outro that evokes Led Zeppelin and overall it is a pretty unexciting bluesy Hard Rock number in the style of that band. As the album closer is a short, relaxing, bluesy instrumental guitar piece, the album's last proper song is Writing On The Wall which is, again, a melodic up tempo rocker.

Three stars might be seen as a rather generous rating for this album, but it is nonetheless the rating I will give as this is one of Triumph's better albums. Good, but by no means essential.

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