OLD LOVES DIE HARD

Well, you know that usually I don't like the so called "derivative prog bands" (think of Pendragon as Marillion's or Camel's clones since the early eighties, Pentwater as a reply to Yes in late sixties/early seventies, then also these "Triumvirat" in the seventies, a derivative band a-la ELP, whose music fortunately was more focused on their songwriting, despite They reached their peek with "Spartacus" only)...but apart from my introduction above, I think of this "Old Loves..." as a good and more "commercial" album, characterized by a vocalist- Barry Palmer-in a kind of trouble in his role, even though He's well coordinated by Jürgen Fritz here, true master mind of the band, which brings about a mood a-la Rick Wakeman regarding the melody and a-la K. Emerson (in a more simple way) regarding the harmony, like within "Panic on 5th Avenue"; while for instance "History of Mystery" is a weak episode, reminding me of the atmosphere inside "Love Beach" by ELP, that I don't like very much...and on the same wave there's "I Believe" (the opener), the most commercial track of the present album, which seems to be quite "journeysque" (unfortunately without Steve Perry on vocals); but the lyrics are quite good after all!! Instead the arrangement regarding the ballad ""A Day In the Life" is reminiscent of a mood which was quite typical in late seventies, even though the piano is evolving towards a more original melody at the piano...Then I have some doubts about the lyrics of "A Cold Old Worried Lady", in my opinion not so inspiring (like Palmer's vocals), as well as about the final title track, which is neither powerful nor so epic, but here the vocalist performs a better job- in a soft style- and such feature could be enough to make their work more suitable for the lovers of other different and more simple music genres (actually this German Band never rechead a commercial success, but nevermind...)

Interesting product, not their best one in my opinion!