SPARTACUS

Returning to their Roman fascination, but retaining the rat artworks, TriumvirRAT did another concept album about the legendary gladiator and slave in Rome, thus provoking even bigger US sales, as Americans love a good "peplum" under any kind of form. This was around the time I became slightly aware of this band, but I wasn't paying attention back then, slowly awakening to heavier pastures in rock.

Opening on an instrumental Capital Of Power that gets our hopes up, the album quickly plunges into the nightmare of derivative music with the atrociously cheesy suite School Of Instant Pain, where the group really does everything to sound like ELP. I don't mean this is undigested influences here, this is downright copycatting, if you'll except the awful singing, which manages to be more unpleasant than Lake's singing was sometimes. If Walls of Doom is not that bad, the following Dream Of Freedom is not totally unknown to me, so maybe I heard it back then on the radio (it's very radio-friendly and the subject of the lyrics can appeal), it's probably the only track where Fritz sings almost correctly. The closing Hazy Shades Of Dawn is another instrumental that seems to be the alter-ego of the opening track. The tracks on the flipside are basically no different than just described, except that there are two mini-suites instead of one, but for the rest, nothing new under the sun

While some would have you believe this is nothing short of a masterpiece, I not only beg to differ, but I'm not even sure this is either essential or even good enough to keep in your shelves.

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