CD Odyssey Disc 1885: Triumph

Welcome back. This week features the triumphant return of a band from my youth. Triumphant – get it? Get it? Man, I crack myself up…

Disc 1885 is… Never Surrender

Artist: Triumph

Year of Release: 1982

What’s up with the Cover? Triumph’s signature logo, if it were a helmet crest. Based on the notches under his left eye, this soldier’s had some close calls while in the business of ‘never surrendering’.

Or maybe he just takes very poor care of his helmet, and it’s gotten dinged up through neglect.

How I Came To Know It: I knew Triumph fairly well as a kid, although my limited purchasing power meant I had to rely on whichever records my brother bought at the time. In 2022 my love for the band was rekindled after watching an excellent documentary about them.

How It Stacks Up: Triumph has released ten studio albums and while the super fans depicted in the documentary likely have them all, I am just a “regular” fan and own four, with no current plans for expansion.

Of those four, one had to be last and “Never Surrender” is that album. Don’t feel bad for it, though; if you’re following along closely, you’ll know that this places it fourth out of 10. You just won’t be reading about numbers 5 – 10 here.

Ratings: 3 stars but almost 4

Early eighties hard rock was its own beast. Stadium shows were the gold standard and to get there bands had to be bigger and more grandiose in their approach to music to fit the intended venues. By 1982, Triumph was a fairly big deal (at least in Canada) and “Never Surrender” feels like a record recorded with the ability to recreate its majesty on very big live stages. This generates some generic bombast, but also a few gems.

As always, the secret weapon that elevates Triumph is their exceptional musicianship, most notably co-lead singer and guitarist Rik Emmett. The record’s two best songs (“A World of Fantasy” and “Never Surrender”) are both sung by Emmett. Emmett’s vocals are very high and anthemic, which was a common sound at the time, but few can elevate to the kind of power he hits, even when singing at the very top of his head voice. Nary a whisper in there as he belts out notes sure to set the crystal in your house ringing.

“A World of Fantasy” is the kind of song that would have appealed to me very differently as a lad compared to now. Back then I was very into fantasy games and books, and lines like…

“You were drawin' me in to your spider's web
With your hungry eyes
I was under your power, I was in your spell
I was hypnotized”

…would have had me thinking of the last session of D&D I’d played and then carefully hid from my school mates (unlike now, back in the day playing those kind of games was social kryptonite and not talked about the next day outside of hushed whispers).

As an adult I now realize the song is about sex, which is also pretty great, and detracts from the song’s enjoyment not a whit.

The album’s title track is the reason this record will never leave the collection. “Never Surrender” is one of rock and roll’s great anthems. As a kid I found it empowering, and a reminder that no matter what life throws at you, you’ll feel better standing in the gales of fortune, and holding fast.

As an adult, nothing about this song has changed, and it is still great advice.

Rik Emmett is equally gifted on the guitar. Classically trained, he once again converts his exceptional skills on the axe into a rock and roll juggernaut. Songs like “Never Surrender” showcase tasty licks, power chords, groove and crunch all in just the right mix.

Every Triumph album features Emmett getting his classical skills on with short instrumentals as well, and on this record we have the pastoral “A Minor Prelude” and the atmospheric “Epilogue (Resolution)”. The latter is one of my favourite songs on the album if for no other reason than the tone Emmett evokes from his instrument. It lifts and melts you at the same time, letting you know the record is over in the same way a fine glass of port lets your palate know dinner is over.

My only quibble about the record is that there is a lot of “the same” going on. There aren’t bad songs per se, but there are more than a couple that are just “oh yeah, stadium rock” without distinguishing features that call your attention. The driving rock guitar on these tracks is fun, but sometimes it can have a “bar band makes it big” feeling. Fortunately, even on the more boring tracks, Emmett wisely throws in a “holy shit!” solo or two to remind you that even when they’re giving the people what they want, Triumph can take it to another level.

Before I depart, a kind word for the band’s other vocalist, drummer Gil Moore. While Gil doesn’t have the anthemic power of Emmett, he is a bit more bluesy in his approach – the Rob Halford to Emmett’s Bruce Dickinson. Moore also has some pretty impressive chops and is solid on the drums as well. His work on “Battle Cry” is him at his best.

Overall, this is a good record that is just shy of being great that over forty years later continues to remind me to never surrender. Thanks, lads.

Best tracks: A World of Fantasy, Battle Cry, Never Surrender, Epilogue (Resolution)

CD Odyssey Disc 1562: Triumph

For the second time in three reviews the random universe has served up a Triumph album.

Disc 1562 is…. Just a Game

Artist: Triumph

Year of Release: 1979

What’s up with the Cover? Even though we can see playing pieces, dice and a checkerboard depicted, the amount of batshittery going on with this cover feels like a lot more than just a game. I mean, maybe it was just a game until the members of Triumph (depicted here as some sort of Thunder Cat-adjacent aliens) came surfing in on the back of a starship shaped like an eagle.

And lest you think the batshittery ends there, allow me to share with you this full fold-out of the cover which reveals the ship in “full wing”, itself being grasped by a gargantuan hand that makes everything else seem like mere toys!

Oh, wait a minute… I guess based on that it is just a game. Context is everything.

How I Came To Know It: I knew one hit off this record from my youth, but once again this was just me digging through Triumph’s back catalogue after recently watching a documentary about their career.

How It Stacks Up: I have three Triumph albums, and “Just a Game” is the best of the bunch. #1.

Ratings: 4 stars

It is possible that after my 4-star review of Triumph’s 1984 record “Thunder Seven” you raced out and bought it for yourself. This is a good decision, and I encourage you to continue to take my excellent advice. It is also possible you found that record slightly too “metal” for your personal tastes. While your aversion to metal is unfathomable and misguided, I can understand how listening to Triumph might leave you with a hankering for a purer seventies hard rock sound. Lucky for you, there are records like “Just a Game” that will more than meet your desires.

“Just a Game” is a classic in the genre, with power chords aplenty, high anthemic vocals and just enough guitar wankery to leave you wondering if maybe it has crossed the line into too much guitar wankery. I hasten to add that this last observation is not a criticism. Think of the guitar wankery on “Just a Game” like when you ask for pepper at a restaurant and the server twists the mill a couple more times than you’re comfortable with. It is going to be a bit spicier than you intended, but it won’t wreck the dish.

A good example of this is on the blues-rock goodness of “Young Enough to Cry”. This song isn’t one of my favourites, mostly because I’m not a huge blues rock guy, but also because it is six minutes long when it should be five. That said, the extra minute is saturated with some of the guitarist Rik Emmett’s finest solo work. Much as I’d like to squeeze that track down a bit, removing even a bar of Emmett’s brilliance would be a crime.

As with a lot of Triumph albums, “Just a Game” is known for its anthemic radio friendly hooks and forgotten for its more esoteric musical explorations. For the former, we have “Lay It on the Line” which is a rock anthem masterpiece. The riff delays its payoff to the chorus, which just makes the anticipatory thrill all the greater on repeat listens. The song’s subject matter has aged poorly. Charitably, the song is about a man professing his love, and asking a woman to do the same, but lyrics like this one:

“You got no right to make me wait
Better talk girl before it gets too late
I never ever thought you could be so unkind
Won't you lay it on the line”

Sound less like they’re being nobly recited up to a second story balcony, and more like an urgent whisper in the back seat of a Chevy Malibu.

The record is replete with great guitar riffs. Also notable is “American Girls” (similar subject, this time with our narrator going home to meet the parents first). This song has a hook that reminded me of Alice Cooper’s “School’s Out” but from there similarities end, with the song taking a departure more toward a more general beach party vibe, from back in a time when beach parties featured a lot of pasty dudes in cut off jean shorts. It is equal parts grimy and infectious.

This being Triumph, once again we get some sharp style turns. “Fantasy Serenade” is another of Emmett’s classical guitar interludes that would be at home during a dinner reception following a high brow wedding, possibly played on a harp. It is an odd experience hearing this immediately following the hard rocking title track, but welcome nonetheless. “Suitcase Blues” feels more like a fifties Sinatra tune than a rock and roll song, but in the tradition of Queen’s “Melancholy Blues” Triumph makes it feel natural and welcome.

I had a hard time picking a favourite between this record and “Thunder Seven”, but I think a lot of that was just my favourable teen memories of the latter. Objectively speaking “Just a Game” is the better record, featuring cleaner production and stronger songwriting throughout. If it feels a little “of its time” it also reminds you that 1979 was a pretty great time for rock and roll.

Best tracks: Movin’ On, Lay It On the Line, American Girls, Just a Game, Hold On

CD Odyssey Disc 1560: Triumph

Sunday morning finds me a bit worn down and reflective. Sometimes there just aren’t enough hours in the day. Feeling that way on a long weekend is, well, not ideal.

A silver lining is that my latest album has energy to spare and has been giving me bursts of energy whenever I can squeeze in some listening time.

Disc 1560 is…. Thunder Seven

Artist: Triumph

Year of Release: 1984

What’s up with the Cover? A modern take on Leonardo da Vinci’s famous sketch, “The Vitruvian Man”. Here Mr. Vitruvius has been upgraded with a metal exoskeleton, or maybe he’s had his bones replaced with adamantium a la Wolverine.

He is encased in some kind of geared contraption, which is foolhardy indeed. No one enslaves Mecha-Vitruvius! I can only assume he will break out of this weak-assed bit of steampunk machinery and take his vengeance up on the world a la Black Sabbath’s “Iron Man”. But I digress…

How I Came To Know It: As a teenager I loved two singles off of this record “Spellbound” and “Follow Your Heart” even going so far as to tape them off of MTV when they aired (I used to sit watching MTV with my hand poised over the Pause/Record button of my stepfather’s kick-ass stereo to create mixed tapes of my favourite music).

However, I had mostly forgotten about Triumph until recently, when I watched “Triumph: Rock & Roll Machine”, a documentary on the band. It was a fascinating film that left me with two thoughts. First, that the members of Triumph seem like eminently decent human beings and second, that they made a lot of good music. So I set out to buy a bunch of my favourite records, starting with this one.

How It Stacks Up: I have three Triumph records. I like them all, but I’m going to put “Thunder Seven” in at #2.

Ratings: 4 stars

“Thunder Seven” is hard rock band Triumph’s seventh record (hence the title) and sees the band continuing to veer toward the eighties metal sound that was all the rage in 1984. It’s how they captured the attention of young metalheads like me who had foolishly considered their earlier music too “light”. However, while the singles have that metal flavour, a full appreciation of the record shows Triumph was still doing what they always had: mixing hard rock guitar riffs in with experimental blues-rock and even a bit of classic guitar.

“Spellbound” kicks things off with a bang, a metal tune about a femme fatale who is either a sorceress or just so pretty it feels like you’ve been bewitched. The music video goes with the former theory, as a mysterious woman in white lures a businessman into the desert where she subsumes his essence into a real-life version of the “Mr. Vetruvius” album cover.

I admit I was more than a little infatuated with the model cast as the sorceress in the video, but the song holds up just fine without the visuals. In particular, we are treated to Triumph’s greatest weapon; the amazing guitar work of Rik Emmett. Emmett is one of rock’s most underrated axemen, and here he provides not only one of my favourite guitar riffs ever, but a kick ass solo as well.

Emmett is classically trained, and as with many prior albums, he likes to show off some of that virtuoso talent with an instrumental. On “Thunder Seven” that is “Midsummer’s Daydream”. It is light-hearted, whimsical and markedly different than the hard-rocking power of “Spellbound”. If you buy a Triumph album expecting it to rock out from beginning to end, you’ll be disappointed. These guys like to experiment.

Not every experiment is a winner, however. “Time Canon” was a disappointment. I was expecting something bombastic and science fiction-y from this one, maybe even featuring some explosions or laser sounds. I failed to note the missing ‘n’ in the title. Nope, this is a musical canon. You know, like “Pachelbel’s Canon”, only with voices instead of violins. It is not nearly as good as “Pachelbel’s Canon” however, and as I’ve previously noted, features absolutely no cannons of any kind.

In addition to Emmett’s amazing guitar work, Triumph’s other great weapon are two amazing vocalists in Emmett and drummer Gil Moore. Both have high anthemic voices that were all the rage in rock music at this time. The kind of voices you want to sing along with but probably can’t keep up with. That’s OK, though, these anthems will encourage you to try and they’re so powerful that they’ll drown out the worst of your shortcomings.

This double threat is what allows for a classic like “Follow Your Heart” to hit the next level. Moore carries the majority of the tune, but Emmett steps in on the chorus to sing “Follow your heart” with Moore cutting him off early with “Living for today, forget about tomorrow”. The crossover of voices gives the song an extra boost of energy, but only works because these guys can both belt it out, and blend together beautifully when they do so.

That crossover also means every time you sing along to “Follow Your Heart” (and when this song comes on, you will be compelled to sing along) you’ll try to cut yourself off as you try to do both vocal parts. It won’t work, but that’s OK. Moore and Emmett have your back and will fill in the missing pieces. Just turn it up nice and loud.

Returning to “Thunder Seven” was like reacquainting myself with an old friend I hadn’t seen in years. The time in between has given me a new appreciation for the music, and also allowed for a much deeper dive than my teenage self ever did. All around, a great experience.

Best tracks: Spellbound, Rock Out Roll On, Follow Your Heart, Midsummer’s Daydream, Stranger in a Strange Land