NEVER SURRENDER

I received this album on loan from my buddy as an extra with all of the early albums I had asked him for to review Triumph for the PA. I had dropped Triumph ( and a lot of 70's survivors I must admit) by this time in the 80's as totally disgusted by the rock scenes , I went on to explore jazz , jazz-rock , psych rock folk-rock of the previous decades, that I had been too young to discover.

The thing that strikes me on this album (I only heard two tracks ever before) is that they still sound a bit like Triumph but they also sound like FM rock of the times, namely Journey , Styx, REO SpeedW etc.. Even the obligatory acoustic track, is shorter by a minute than usual and serves as intro to the metallic All The Way. Some tracks drag on (Battle Cry) while others are insufferable right from the start (Lights go Down and Writing On The Wall) and their "epic" (if you can call it that) title track with its intro is downright deceiving for the old fan. But it is in term with the rest of the album: compared to their early albums, ideas are rarer and therefore stretched to last a whole song where previously you could stick four of them into a filler track. If I seem severe with Triumph, burning what I have loved before, I can only answer your angry remarks by telling you how the once mighty have fallen! I will however be king enough to round off my rating to the upper unit/star.