Customer Reviews

Spartacus

5 star:		(36)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

After God knows how many years, "Spartacus" is finally available on CD!! And about time, too. Triumvirat generated a number of classic albums in the '70s, but this one clearly stands head and shoulders above the rest of their work (although "Illusions on a Double Dimple" is a very close second). The concept behind "Spartacus" is strong, the lyrics work well, and the musicianship is absolutely unstoppable. "Capitol of Power", "School of Instant Pain", "The Burning Sword of Capua", and "The March to the Eternal City" are each signally powerful and energetic numbers, while "The Deadly Dream of Freedom" offers a smoothly lyric break from the hurly burly. And the finale, "Spartacus", simply has to be heard to be believed ... wow!

Of course, Triumvirat still bears an inescapable resemblance to Emerson, Lake & Palmer ... but that's not a bad thing at all, and fans of the latter group should run screaming to their computer keyboards to order "Spartacus".

It would be lovely if the EMI folks would hunt up some old tapes from some live performances ... !

We are bigtime progressive rock fans, and loved groups such as Yes, ELP, King Crimson, Jethro Tull, early Rush and UK. Triumvirat, which hailed from Germany, was a relative latecomer in the ranks, but helped to keep progressive rock alive through the latter half of the 70s. We have quite a few of their albums on vinyl and they've been played half to death. Vinyl being vinyl, much of the sound quality has suffered. We searched for a couple years to find replacements on CD and were at last delighted to find that Triumvirat was releasing remasters on compact disc. We pre-ordered Spartacus, our favorite album of the bunch, and received it at long last. It was worth the wait. The sound is crisp and clear, very impressive. Like Rush and Pink Floyd, the entire album is a story, in this case the saga of Spartacus, who led the gladiators' revolt against Imperial Rome. Triumvirat was clearly the brainchild of Jurgen Fritz, the keyboard player, who never left the lineup no matter how often it changed. His indelible mark is found in the classical elements lacing each song. Soaring and powerful music and haunting vocals make this a fine example of progressive rock. Their sound is so timeless that even our teenage children fell madly in love with Triumvirat. This CD is an excellent investment and we highly recommend it for hours of listening pleasure.

Triumvirat's heyday was limited to just two or three albums from the early to mid 1970's (before Helmet Kollen's departure), and "Spartacus" was their magnum opus. Despite other reviewers' unjustified complaints that they were simply an ELP ripoff band, Triumvirat proved with "Spartacus" that they could compose and play an intricate and interesting concept album on an original subject, and deliver a work that has stood the test of time as well as anything that their progenitors ever produced.

The original album contains about 42 minutes of great music, and this remastered version rewards the listener with three previously unreleased live versions of songs from the "Spartacus" album, plus two so-so bonus tracks recorded after this album (more in the prog-pop vein, and sung by the less likable [to me, at least] Barry Palmer). The highlight of the bonus tracks has to be the middle section instrumental of "March to the Eternal City" - they go from the dark and foreboding march theme to an almost funky(!) groove with a extended keyboard solo that sort of sounds like what the Alan Parsons Project would do if they had Triumvirat's chops and audacity. Pretty cool.

But back to the original album - what a fantastic treat this was for anyone into keyboard-driven prog. Jurgen Fritz was just a phenomenal keyboard player; he was fast and inventive and knew just the right time to use the piano or organ or synth or some combination of all. Helmet Kollen played a very busy and melodic bass, supplied some appropriate guitar riffs, and sang the English lyrics in a nice tenor that bore little German accent. The drumming by Hans Bathelt was crisp and clever. While some of the songs bordered on prog-pop and ballads, there were some simply stunning prog workouts throughout the album, not the least of which was the album closer "Spartacus" - layered keyboards, inspirational melodies, and a driving rhythm section make the perfect ending to a very exciting album. Even though some of the lyrics could be a little cheesy or clumsy, they nevertheless told a good story that you could not ignore despite the virtuosity of the playing.

The sound quality here is fantastic, and even more pronounced for me since the only other copy of this album that I owned was the original vinyl from 1976, the second side of which never quite recovered from the spilled beer incident... (Note to self on one foggy-headed morning in 1977: Hide your albums after the third keg is tapped!) Surely reminiscent of ELP without overt plagiarism, this was a standout keyboard-prog jewel of the mid 1970's. Look for the mouse inside the light bulb, and ENJOY.

I value interesting music that is played and recorded well. This cd's rating was based on:
Music quality = 8.4/10; Performance = 9/10; Production = 9.5/10; CD length = 9/10.
Overall score weighted on my proprietary scale = 8.8 ("4-1/2 stars")

I have written several hundred reviews on Amazon, the majority dealing with the remastering of compact disc recordings. As a 50-year-old, lifelong music fan, an owner of a CD collection large enough to be termed a library, a crazed pursuer of tens of thousands of dollars/decades of audio equipment upgrades, and ultimately, as an intense LISTENER, I feel comfortable in my mastering observations.

However, in all those reviews, I have seldom opined to content. I've always held music criticism in various forms of contempt: I'm old enough to have read the original reviews of many albums Rolling Stone magazine panned back in the 70's that they now hail as "classic" and "must-own" recordings.

As Irish author Brendan Behan once waxed best: "Critics are like eunuchs in a harem; they know how it's done, they've seen it done every day, but they're unable to do it themselves." And, as Harlan Ellison succinctly observed, Roger Ebert, albeit one of the pre-eminent film historian/critics of our time, will also, unfortunately, always be the guy who penned the original screenplay to "Beyond The Valley Of The Dolls".

Respectively, sage words and adroit perspective to live by, I always thought.

So, on to Triumvirat and "Spartacus".

Being an instant prog-fan with the first ELP, King Crimson & Yes albums in 1969, Spartacus knocked me out the first time I spun it on a turntable in `74. Yet, throughout the subsequent decades, the album always had one distinctive and unfortunate trademark for me: No matter what other prog-acquaintance I played it for, the album and band were instantly dismissed as "ELP rip-off's" (a reaction very similar to that I always received of Frank Marino via Jimi Hendrix, also quite undeserved), and you see some of that in the reviews below.

Although I understood the observation, I never agreed with it. So much so, that I feel compelled to come to the album's defense and offer my own perspective. Therefore, I humbly hereby fling my fedora into the roped canvas quad.

Put simply, Spartacus is just a really great record, and may be one of the strongest prog albums of the 70's. As Triumvirat is always compared to ELP, I would offer that Spartacus is certainly a far more concise and finished piece than some of the ELP albums, many of which contained iconoclastic compositions, but were rounded off with uneven ("Tarkus"), and sometimes hackneyed ("Works", as in both, and don't get me started on "Love Beach", which even ELP themselves detest), material.

There is not one weak track on Spartacus, and Triumvirat acquit themselves mightily as both musicians and songwriters. Nothing they did before, and nothing that followed, was as accomplished, or has stood the test of time, as Spartacus does. And, truth be told, I never particularly cared for the other albums in the Triumvirat catalog.

I consider Spartacus a perfect prog album, one that should stand proudly beside ELP's "Brain Salad Surgery", as each band's respective masterpiece. Like BSS, everything on Spartacus just jelled to perfection (although, honestly, I have always been able to do without "Benny The Bouncer", the proverbial funny-colored "pickle" in the BSS punchbowl). Am I saying is Spartacus as good as BSS? Of course not. But if Spartacus were an ELP album, my personal preference would place it behind only BSS, ELP1 & Tarkus, and ahead of all the other studio ELP albums, including Trilogy.

Yes, there are brief passages in Spartacus that are almost, or are, note-for-note ELP-esque. But if you listen to the entire recording, rather than fixate on a few bars, you will find, as I have, a work deserving of far greater recognition. I've always suspected, although not substantiated by anything I've ever read, that the incorporation of those momentary passages may have been nothing more than ELP homages, rather than plagiarization. Barclay James Harvest, another 70's prog band, did exactly that with the Beatles and The Moody Blues and I don't remember them ever getting trashed for it.

And, yes, some of the lyrics ("In the Gladiator's school, things were perfect, things were cool") will raise the corner of your mouth, as if your olfactories had been gently prodded by a rather pungent slice of pressed curd of milk.

But, anyone who considers themselves to be a fan of progressive music, and actually listens to this album, should admit to one fact: These cats were awesome players on their respective instruments. Check out the extended soloing in the live bonus tracks, if you need further convincing. The musicianship Triumvirat's members display on Spartacus is on a par with almost anything ELP ever recorded: Tight, fiery, inventive, expressive and eminently listenable... everything a prog-fan should want.

So, if you've never heard this album, or, if you have and dismissed it, PLEASE, give it a whirl/re-whirl, in both cases, with an open mind.

If you do so, IMHO, I think you will find a work that not only stands on its own, but one that is whole-heartedly, start-to-finish, just downright, doggone enjoyable.

As a teenager in the 1970's, this was absolutely one of my favorite LP records (remember those?). I practically wore out the groove in the vinyl playing it so often. Then in 1985, I bought my first CD player and gave away the turntable, and I've been waiting for the CD release of Spartacus ever since. Now that it's here, I have finally gotten another long-awaited fix of Spartacus. To my pleasant surprise, the audio quality of the CD remastering is quite good. Kudo's to EMI for doing it right.

The album concept is excellent. The lyrics are appropriate for the theme. (A gladiator/slave revolt is a gory matter, so this ain't no namby-pamby New Age disc.) And the musicianship is fabulous. On the LP, Juergen Fritz's keyboard work was always spectacular, and the incredible groove of Helmut Koellen's bass line on "March To The Eternal City" was instantly addictive to anyone who'd heard it. (This was THE bass demonstration song back in the '70's.) But on the CD, Hans Bathelt's drumming is what really stands out to me now. It's far more intricate and exiciting than that of most other rock and roll drummers, then or now.

The two bonus tracks on the CD aren't of much added value IMHO. The live version of "The Capital of Power" is almost a note-for-note duplicate of the studio version, so why bother? And the previously unreleased "Showstopper" sounds like an outtake from EL&P's "Karn Evil 9" suite.

The only reason I didn't give this one a 5-star rating is that Fritz's primitive Moog synthesizer, which is prominent in many of the tunes, just sounds so dated and simplistic compared to full-bodied modern synth. That's not to fault the musicianship, it's just a limitation of the tools available at the time.
Nevertheless, the bottom line: Go out and buy this disc, even if you weren't born yet when Spartacus was originally released.

P.S. I still don't understand the light bulb on the cover. (The rat, on the other hand, is self-explanatory.)

This is a classic album for anyone who loves the prog rock movement, but it reaches beyond just that hardcore audience. The sound is excellent and the treasure on this package is the bonus cut Take A Break Today. It doesn't hurt that this disc is SEVEN DOLLARS cheaper than the import version.

This is one of half a dozen albums I have on vinyl which I really wanted on CD, but could not find. So, I actually bought an secondhand audiophile preamplifier, a second secondhand turntable, a SoundBlaster Audigy soundcard for my 'puter and software to record, de-hum, denoise and remove the scratches from the vinyl so I could burn it to CD. Luckily, they now have an import which you can buy without having to go through the gyrations I went through!

Anyone actually reading this review probably knows this album. It is one of the great (if not well known) concept albums of the '70s. The album delves into the universal theme of hope against overwhelming odds -- preferring to risk death while fighting for freedom to a life in slavery. The album tells the historical story of Spartacus, a Thracian/Roman slave who was trained in a gladiator school around 70BC. He then led the other gladiators in revolt, and assembled a huge army of thousands of slaves to challenge the might of Rome. Rome eventually crushed the rebellion and crucified 6000 survivors. Given its theme of fighting for freedom, it is not surprising that the album is comprised of rock marches of "countless slaves [marching] to go to war."

The three man keyboard driven structure of the band invites comparison to Emerson, Lake and Palmer. Like ELP, the music is driven by some exceptional keyboard work, anchored by very strong drum work, and consists of a fusion of rock, classical and jazz. Musically, the album lacks the complexity and of ELP, and the musicianship is more mechanical and less emotional.

This is not necessarily a bad thing as the album is musically more accessible. At times, the band sounds more like Supertramp than Crime of the Century. The transition from one style to the next is effortless as the entire album is heavily echoed.

This is a great album. I highly recommend it. I just which they would come out with a DVD-Audio or SACD version.

What had a poor proggy lad like me to look forward to in 1975? More Yes solo albums? When Triumvirat appeared on the radar screen in 1974 with "Illusions on a Double Dimple," their ELP cloned proggy sound made people like me smile and sigh. With ELP and all the other major Prog groups still on hiatus, Triumvirat had center stage largely to themselves, and for their third album, they swelled like bread in the rain.

Some other reviewer will give you the personnel changes, but the essence of the band was always Jurgen Fritz, the slightly plump dude in the frilly collar who could play as well as of the other keyboard virtousos of the that era. Looking for a suitable epic as a subject for this third album must have been daunting. The German national epics had been done by Wagner and then co-opted by the Nazi regime, so that a German band doing Siegfried was out of the question then, and probably now. A suitable anti-Siegried was the socialist wet-dream of Spartacus, turned into a kitsch epic film starring Kirk Douglas. Also, Pre-Nazi socailists called themselves "Spartacists" thus giving the RAT even more distance from the disquieting cultural baggage of their homeland, and currying favor with the leftist sympathies of their student listeners.

If "Illusions" was the direct musical heir to "Tarkus," then "Spartacus" is the child of "Trilogy" and "Brain Salad Surgery." The album even begins with a rip off the opening of the ELP song "Trilogy." "Spartacus" isn't on the same level as Emerson's masterpieces, but it has some of the same virtues of Triumvirat's previous work: intense musicality, and an album-long cohesion that few progsters were capable of sustaining.

Once again, I must question the style of music coupled with the content; surely a song-cycle about Spartacus would be far more dissonant than Fritz's fundamentally conservative musical offerings. Still, the album is filled with the same musical precision that made the Rat's two previous works so listenable. Utilmately, this album comes to signify the end of the prog cycle; every move is expected, every sound has been heard before, yet it is done so well, that those short-comings hardly matter.

Perhaps Trimvirat saw themselves as underdogs; their logo is the trapped mouse, but they stood alone in 1975 and this epic album holds up still.

Over two years ago, the news came out that EMI would remaster and re-release the classic progressive rock album "Spartacus" by the German group Triumvirat. I have been eagerly awaiting the cd ever since. The wait was well worth it. I've owned the album for over 25 years and I'm hearing notes I never heard before. Often called the German ELP, this group is also similar to early Yes and some of Rick Wakeman's concept albums. This album is also a concept album telling the story of the slave revolt led by Spartacus made famous in the movie of the same name starring Kirk Douglas. The music fits the story perfectly and the muscianship is superb, let by Juergen Fritz's music and synthesizer and keyboard work, Hans Bathelt's drumming and lyrics, and Helmut Koellen's vocals. This is the seminal work from this group, and belongs in the collection of any progressive rock or ELP fan.

This 1975 release consists of a series of shorter pieces in the 2-9 minute range that are more or less strung together to intimate the history of Spartacus and the third slave uprising in 42 minutes or so. This album finds the group at a peak after which point this lineup would unfortunately dissolve.

Although Triumvirat sounds a great deal like ELP, I find their music to be a lot more accessible. On Spartacus, the listener is treated to galloping Hammond organ, blistering mini-moog solos, and soaring string synthesizer pads atop a fairly agile rhythm section. This all may sound familiar: indeed, shades of ELP's Trilogy album (1972) turn up here and there. The ensemble work is intricate; the melodies are superb; the vocals (in English) are excellent; and the arrangements are well thought out, which makes Triumvirat justifiably one of the more technically accomplished of the German prog bands.

This remastered album from 2002 (EMI) features excellent sound quality and a CD booklet that features recording credits, informational tidbits, and photos of the group. The bonus tracks are dispensable. Another remastered version was issued in 2003 - I have not heard this version.

This is a good recording that should keep most prog fans entertained. Recommended along with Illusions on a Double Dimple (1973), which is somewhat similar to Spartacus, yet not as consistent.