SURVEILLANCE

In my opinion this is easily Triumph's best album. It is a very well made album with well written songs and extremely well played instruments. It is also more consistent and varied than earlier Triumph albums. The most important factor for success here though is the departure from the blatant party rockers of earlier albums (apart from Rock You Down which is the worst song on this album).

The vocals are excellent too and remind of Steve Perry of Journey and in some songs the music does remind a bit of Journey but a bit more metal. There are more keyboards on this album than on earlier Triumph albums and sometimes they remind slightly of the keys on Marillion's excellent Seasons End album (released the same year). However, the keyboards are never allowed the leading role and there are no keyboard solos.

Steve Morse guests on the album and you can hear his signature guitar style on Headed For Nowhere. The main riff of this song has something of an Iron Maiden sound to it!

All The Kings Horses is beautiful mellow song that leads into the rocker Carry On The Flame and the melody of All The Kings Horses is repeated again towards the end of that song. Nothing groundbreaking here, but it is a very nice arrangement.

Towards the end of the album the quality of the songs decreases a bit and nothing on the second half is as good as the first half. The closing number Running In The Night reminds me of what Asia would do on their Aria album few years later.

One negative aspect of this album compared to previous ones is that there isn't the typical Rik Emmet acoustic instrumental here (like the very nice Midsummer Daydream from the Thunder Seven album, for example). There are two short instrumentals on this album, but these are only mood setters and are not interesting on their own.

Overall, I would compare the style of this album to Kansas' Power album (on which Steve Morse also played) as well as to some of the better Wishbone Ash albums on the 80's.

This is a good album that deserves three solid stars. Recommended!

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