I have always had a great deal of admiration and even sympathy
\nfor rock and roll power trios. For the ones that were able to
\nsucceed in the AOR world of the late 70’s and 80’s, one title was
\ncommonly thrown their way — “thinking man’s rock.” This title may
\nhave been given partly due to the fact that within the chemistry of
\na three-man unit, there was simply no room for someone to solely
\nconcentrate on the lead vocal responsibility and ultimately the
\ncamera. With this being the era of MTV’s birth where image became
\neverything in music, “thinking man’s rock” unfairly started
\nbecoming uncool.<\/p>\n
Perhaps one of the best rock trios of this era were the Toronto,
\nCanada-based band Triumph. If they weren’t the best, they were
\nsurely the most underrated. Anchored by lead guitar whiz Rik
\nEmmett, the lead vocal duties of the band had always been split
\nbetween himself and drummer Gil Moore. And while we are talking
\nabout the terms of “best” and “underrated,” those adjectives also
\nfit when analyzing
\nThunder Seven<\/i>‘s importance amongst the other eight studio
\nLP’s in the Triumph catalog.<\/p>\n
When comparing
\nThunder Seven<\/i> to the band’s previous work, one thing that
\nstands out is the heavier tone of the recorded songs. I’m
\nrelatively sure that this was the result of the album being
\nrecorded in the band’s newly constructed Metalworks studio and
\nsubjected to a new acoustic dynamic.<\/p>\n
This was a good thing as it really suited Gil Moore’s driving
\nhard-rock vocal style and also induced Rik Emmett to showcase a
\nvocal style that muddied his trademark traditional falsetto pitch
\non the song “Rock Out, Roll On.” The end result was an eerie
\nmessage from Rik warning that the “ghosts of Woodstock” were still
\nhaunting the next of kin and holding back the future of rock n’
\nroll. The message within the framework of this song is convincing
\nenough and a credit to the band’s experimentation with the dark,
\nplodding production strategy they employed. During the song “Cool
\nDown,” Emmett’s vocals mirror Robert Plant during Led Zeppelin’s
\nheavier days, again deviating from the soaring vocal sound commonly
\nassociated with him in the past.<\/p>\n
\nThunder Seven<\/i> also featured two of the most prominent
\ncharting songs for the band – both with Moore handling the vocals
\n— “Spellbound” (Billboard Mainstream Rock, #10) and “Follow Your
\nHeart” (Billboard Mainstream Rock, #13). I remember as a kid first
\nhearing “Spellbound” how drawn in I was by the opening synthesizer
\nwork. Almost twenty years later, I can now tell you how dated those
\nsame synthesizers make the song sound. “Follow Your Heart” is the
\nlooser-flowing and more pop-sounding of the two songs. The title of
\nthe song is a great clich\u00e9, even by today’s standards, to
\nbuild a song around.<\/p>\n
Interestingly, the best song Triumph ever wrote that never saw
\nthe light of day was this album’s “Time Goes By.” Talk about a
\nsoaring introduction and a great bass line by Mike Levine that
\ncascades into a dark and beautiful melody. While the song brings
\nback Rik Emmett’s high pitched falsetto, it also highlights his
\nsongwriting ability to the fullest and fits in the inspirational
\nline, “We all bear witness as history unfolds; Let’s hope tomorrow
\ncan deliver on the promise that she holds.” When I claimed Triumph
\nfit into the category of “thinking man’s rock,” it’s words like
\nthis that define my claim.<\/p>\n
“Midsummer’s Daydream” is a brilliant acoustic piece by Emmett
\nwith an almost classical sound. The fretwork exhibited here
\nshowcases Rik Emmett as a guitarist for the ages and one that
\ndidn’t have to rely on the chemistry of a band to be a success.<\/p>\n
The diversity of the songs on
\nThunder Seven<\/i> should be cemented by the power of Moore and
\nEmmett dueting their way through the song “Killing Time.” With
\nEmmett’s high pitch and Moore’s heavier voice, the chemistry of
\nthis song comes across amazingly, the vocals as fluid as the
\ntightest big brother\/little brother bond ever seen. It was the
\nfirst time the two had ever collaborated in such a way on a
\nsong.<\/p>\n
Looking back on
\nThunder Seven<\/i> in this day and age, it’s apparent that MCA
\nmissed the boat promoting this album. Thunder Seven had so much to
\noffer to such a great number of people without alienating any
\nparticular musical taste. MTV was a marketing vehicle moving at
\nfull steam and hard rock bands were commonly filling arenas while
\non tour. Looking back on it all, something obviously misfired
\ncausing
\nThunder Seven<\/i> to become one of the forgotten gems of the
\n80’s.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":27,"featured_media":26348,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"artist":[6012],"rating":[5646],"class_list":["post-37578","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-triumph","rating-rating-a"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/37578","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/27"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=37578"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/37578\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26348"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=37578"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=37578"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=37578"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}