Spartacus

Illusions on a Double Dimple 2002 remastered reissue of the German progressive rock act's 1974 album. Includes 4 bonus tracks that were originally released as 7'' singles 'Dancer's Delight', 'Timothy', 'Dimplicity' & 'Million Dollars' (edit). EMI.	Old Loves Die Hard 2002 remastered reissue of the German progressive rock act's 1976 album. Includes one bonus track originally released as a 7'' single 'Take A Break Today'. EMI.	Pompeii 2002 remastered reissue of the German progressive rock act's 1977 album. Includes one bonus track originally released a 7'' single 'The Hymn'. EMI.	Mediterranean Tales (Across The Waters) Full title - Mediterranean Tales (Across The Water). 2002 remastered reissue of the German progressive rock act's 1972 album. Includes 4 bonus tracks originally released as 7'' singles 'Be Home For Tea' (edit of track 1d), 'Broken Mirror' (edit), 'Ride In The Night' & 'Sing me A Song'. EMI.	A La Carte 2002 remastered reissue of the German progressive rock act's 1978 album.
Mirage UK reissue of 1974 album, remastered from the original tapes & includes 4 bonus tracks 'Supertwister' (recorded live at The Marquee Club), 'Mystic Queen' (recorded live at the Marquee Club), 'Arubaluba' (recorded live at The Marquee Club) & 'Lady Fantasy-Encounter/Smiles For Y...	The Snow Goose UK reissue of 1975 album, remastered from the original tapes & includes 5 previously unreleased bonus tracks 'Flight of the Snow Goose' (single edit), 'Rhayader' (single edit), 'Flight of the Snow Goose' (alternate single edit), 'Rhayader Goes To Town' (recorded live at The M...	Starcastle	In the Court of the Crimson King	Journey to the Centre of the Earth

"Prog-historical" rock at its prime
Have owned this album forever, and acquired a new copy a while ago... While cannot comment on the actual engineering of this edition, Triumvirat always was distinguished by great sound, so it is improvement on a great thing... Prog rock was at its best when telling a story... and this one tells a story always worth telling and listening to. Jurgen Fritz's keyboards are superb, the blend of classical, rock, with a tinge of R&B is hooking, and Bathelt's lyrics are a worthy background to the best telling of Spartacus' story...

"The Sweetest Sound Of Liberty" the classic release w/5 bonus cuts!
As the author of the Jefferson Airplane book "Take Me To A Circus Tent" and a former radio disc-jockey, I am often asked to write and or discuss various music supplies and recordings from the 60's and 70's. Prog outfit Triumvirat proudly returned in 1975 with their third and finest effort "Spartacus." It had to be incredibility frustrating for the trio Jurgen Fritz- keyboards and vocals, Hans Bathelt- drums and Helmut Kollen- guitar and bass to have every creative thought under scrutiny from the anti-progressive bias from the rock press. On the first two efforts (Well worth owning) Mediterranean Tales (Across the Water) and Illusions on a Double Dimple, the criticism centered around the music not being accessible to most ears. Never mind these guys were making solid inroads and hardly were going to use their classical training for three minute dance songs. When Spartacus hit the record store shelves the rock press panned the album for sounding too much like Emerson, Lake, and Palmer (Which by the way was a band they somehow managed to dislike anyway). As if emulating their music is a bad thing! What should have been universal is the applause for Fritz's keyboards. Similar to how Keith Emerson not only plays the perfect piece during the songs composition, the sound of his instrument is equally as flawless. Fritz pulled this off throughout the forty-two minute epic battle. You have heard the story before about the Roman Gladiator leading a revolt against his birthplace. Triumvirat tells the tale beginning with The Capitol Of Power. The bass-lines create such power and intensity the consumer is hooked on the first few notes. The School Of Instant Pain is where you can truly be absorbed by the keyboard sounds. Almost memorizing as they come from the speakers and the drum fills are superlative. The Walls Of Doom could find inclusion on part of ELP's "Tarkus." The Deadly Dream Of Freedom to this day could be Fritz's finest vocal. The lyrics are stunning in their presentation. You can be fooled that he is the gladiator recruiting those for battle! "The Hazy Shades Of Dawn" has more homage to Emerson and the instrumentation is stellar. The Burning Sword Of Capua is haunting. There is something sinister in the air. The Sweetest Sound Of Liberty again showcases Fritz's underrated vocals. The March To The Eternal City is dark as the concept album builds to a crescendo. One of the finest tunes of the era. We have reached the end of the battle as "Spartacus" the title track fades out. Wait that is no longer true. Thanks to the five bonus tracks on the remastered CD Deluxe Edition you can feast on The Capital Of Power (Live) The Deadly Dream Of Freedom (Live) The March To The Eternal City (Live) Late Again Take A Break Today The only downfall and this is on the record companies is there are two remastered versions with bonus tracks. The ones mentioned here and if you purchase the other remaster you get: The Capital Of Power (Live) and Showstopper (Which is left off this pressing). Irritate the critics and relive the battle for Rome courtesy of Triumvirat! Enjoy the music and be well, Craig Fenton Author of the Jefferson Airplane book "Take Me To A Circus Tent"

A keyboard lover's delight!
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 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")

TOO GOOD FOR THEIR OWN GOOD?
I have written several hundred reviews on Amazon, the majority dealing with the remastering of compact disc recordings. As an aside, I unabashedly invite you to click on my ID above and peruse my electronic scribbling, if you, too, have an interest in remastering. Now that Amazon has added the ability to leave comments, I would be interested in hearing your opinions and possibly receiving your votes. 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.

It's still my favorite album.
Sure Emerson Lake and Palmer are still my favorite group, but Triumvirat's Spartacus is still my favorite all time album. It very much resembles ELP, but it's different in being a bit simpler and easier. An extremely talented Jurgen Fritz still copies Keith Emerson as best he can, and he'll never be the same, but this album just gives you a powerfull feeling as "March to the Eternal City" starts and continues into "Spartacus". You'll be playing the keyboard parts on the dash of your car or pounding the memorable drum beats. Maybe it's just me but if this album doesn't get your energy going, you're just dead. It WILL get you going.