POMPEII

By the time of Pompeii Jürgen Fritz was left entirely to his own devices. Gone was his loyal collaborator Hans Bathelt and only the vocalist Barry Palmer, who previously sppeared on Old Loves Die Hard, was left to remind us of the past days of glory. All this meant that Fritz began to pay less attention to the songwriting, devoting most of his energy to virtuoso keyboard playing while leaving the rest of the band as a mere backup for his keyboard creations with only an occasional vocal contribution from Palmer.

Having said all that it's still not a bad experience especially if we consider the complete disaster of the two following releases. Pompeii bares a resemblance to the band's glory days of Spartacus not only in its thematic nature but also in the structural such. It features mostly shorter songs that don't exceed the 7,5 minute mark, which is a departure from Old Loves Die Hard, and features a much more confident Barry Palmer who has finally found his sound, making his performances much more fluent with the texture of the music.

Most of the material works pretty well for a late '70s Symphonic Prog release, even though it might have more of a commercial approach in the vocal sections making it sound like a rock opera á la Phantom Of The Paradise or The Rocky Horror Picture Show. If you're not into that kind of thing then chances are you should get your kicks elsewhere. There are of course quite a few instrumental sections that work rather well when experienced out of context from the concept album. Although unlike the previous Jürgen Fritz-driven instrumentals these ones tend to sound too excessive for my tastes but I'm sure that most fans of Rick Wakeman and Keith Emerson wouldn't notice the fine line that I'm depicting here.

Pompeii is sadly the last interesting release from Jürgen Fritz's Triumvirat since everything that came after it can only be described as an exercise in bad taste. This does make me want to like this release more than what I actually do, but seeing that there are hardly any stand-out moments throughout these 45 minutes of music a good, but non-essential rating will do just fine.

**** star songs: Journey Of A Fallen Angel (6:17) Viva Pompeii (4:18) The Time Of Your Life...? (4:37) Dance On The Volcano (3:32) Vesuvius 79 A.D. (6:34) The Hymn (7:17)

*** star songs: The Earthquake 62 A.D. (6:21) The Rich Man And The Carpenter (5:59)