POMPEII

When former Triumvirat musician-singer-songwriter Helmut Koellen died on May 3rd, 1977, Triumvirat as it existed had been working with the idea of doing a concept album based on the disaster in Pompeii, Italy. Overcome by grief and loss at losing such an important Triumvirat member as Koellen, Jurgen Fritz and others decided to turn their feelings into positive, creative action, and the result was the Triumvirat album "Pompeii". If there was ever an album that qualifies as acquiring "mixed feelings" for me, it is this.

Now, the bad news first. Barry Palmer's vocals are pretty routine, and he was no Helmut Koellen, that's for sure. The worst thing is that the use of vocals on Pompeii is overdone, and in many songs, the vocals are long winded, and this detracts from the appreciation of the accompanying music. It can be annoying at times.

The good news, is that Pompeii is a well engineered and produced record, and the actual instrumental music played here is of pretty high quality. Jurgen Fritz especially shines as keyboardist, and Passport musicians Dieter Petereit on bass, and drummer Curt Cress are great, as well. Instrumentally, Pompeii is better than it's predecessor Old Loves Die Hard. Fritz seems to be trying less, but getting better results in the instrumental department. For me, i prefer the instrumental tracks, though, admittedly, there are not many of them. I have always wondered what Pompeii would sound like with the vocals greatly reduced, or removed completely.

I understand that in concept albums, a story needs to be told, usually vocally, but here, the instrumental aspects excel more than the others quite obviously. Oh, well, not a perfect album, but not many are. I give it three stars-Pompeii is not great, but good.