SPARTACUS

Spartacus was the second album with the classic line up of Jürgen Fritz, Helmut Köellen and Hans Bathelt. A concept album about the gladiator who led a rebellion against Rome, it was a daring move for such a new band, but - unlike so many others who tried the same - a very succesful one, both artistically and comercially (it even charted at the USA top 30).

Musicly speaking, this album is more simple than the previous one, Illusions On A Double Dimple, since Fritz did not use any real orchestration or choirs. All the orchestral parts comes from his keyboards, specially the ARP String Essemble Synthesizer. I had mixed feelings about this move. While you have to consider that he did a great job, the ELP influence is back in full force, something he avoided so brilliantly on Illusions On A Double Dimple.

Still what a great piece of music! Rarely I´ve seen a concept album that works so well, the music and lyrics blending together to bring the story a new dimension. The group never seemed so good as a unit. It´s hard to believe that only 3 guys did all this wall of sound. Unfortunatly this would be also their very last. Helmut Köellen left the band soon after the release of this LP. Even if he had stayed it would not meant new works were delivered by the same line up, since he died on a tragic car accident a little over a year later.

However, this CD and Illusions... proved that this band had something special. They both survived the test of time and can be heard with equal pleasure after 30 years of their original release, still sounding as fresh and exciting as they did back then. A must have for any prog fan. Or anyone who likes good music in general.