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Triumph - Never Surrender Audio CD

A fair review of the Triumph "Never Surrender" Audio CD. Please note that the below review is the views of the authors, and authors only. You can get a complete list of all Triumph reviews here, or go back to the Triumph tabs.

Triumph Band: Triumph
Title: Never Surrender
Rating:
Release Date: 2004-11-09
Media: Audio CD

Tracks: 1: Too Much Thinking 2: World of Fantasy 3: Minor Prelude 4: All the Way 5: Battle Cry 6: Overture (Processional) 7: Never Surrender 8: When the Lights Go Down 9: Writing on the Wall 10: Epilogue (Resolution)

Not triumphant
While the album is technically sound, the music is mediocre. After the success of ALLIED FORCES, expectations were at their highest for Triumph's next release, NEVER SURRENDER. The songs, A World of Fantasy and the title track are standouts, but the rest of the songs are a little bland, and parallel other bands that were pumping out plain-sounding simple rock anthems that saturated the airwaves of that era. I like Triumph as a band, but have to be honest when I say that this isn't their best effort. In fact, THUNDER SEVEN is much better than this album. One thing that I feel is one of Triumph's downfalls over the years is their not sticking with one vocalist. Rik Emmett is an awesome vocalist (as well as guitar player), and Gil Moore is a good vocalist, but when Gil sings, the band's identity is lost, because people are used to the voice of Rik, and sometimes don't know that they're listening to Triumph, from a vocal standpoint. I really think that this approach cost them many record sales over the years. Rik should've been the primary vocalist the whole time, because he's better, and there would've been less confusion. Also, the guitar instrumental songs sprinkled into every release tended to get a little annoying, especially after a song that was powerful. The guitar instrumentals don't transition well. Still, this one is worth purchasing for the loyal fan. Not bad. .


The Best Album Ever!
It's the best hard rock album of all time! Ok I'm a little biased since Triumph is my favorite group. Not only is this the best Triumph album ever. Simply put this album rocks from beginning to end. There are no fillers on this album! Every song is a classic in it's own right. Put them all together and you have one classic album!I never get tired of listening to this album! Every time I put it on my stereo I feel like I'm rocking like nobody else is in the world! If your a Triumph fan and you don't have this CD. Buy it as soon as possible! If you like good hard rock and you don't have any Triumph CD's. Buy this album and soon you will find yourself buying more of the Rock And Roll Machine!.


One of the forgotten classics.
Foghat opened for them. Telling of my age, but I saw Triumph in '82 on their Never Surrender Tour in the Omni in Atlanta, Georgia. This album is one of the great forgotten classics of Rock and Roll.


A worthy successor to Allied Forces 25 years later

Many fans were wondering when first buying this album if the album would be either as good or better than its predecessor as the massive sales of Allied Forces made the band work hard to come up with a superb followup to their Allied Forces album. Canadian power trio Triumph released their long awaited followup studio album to their 1981 Platinum seller Allied Forces entitled Never Surrender in the Spring of 1983.
I go with the former as did many fans who helped push the album to #26 on the Billboard album chart and Gold status here in the States.
Never Surrender picked up where its predecessor left off.
The album features some of the band's best tracks like singer/guitarist Rik Emmett's massive hit single "A World of Fantasy" and the superb six and a half minute title cut.
Singer/drummer Gil Moore's best vocal performance on this album is on the hard rocker "When the Lights Go Down" which (at first) sounds like an acoustic blues song at first before rocking out.
Other standouts are the opening "Too Much Thinking" (which had samples of the late great President Ronald Reagan at the intro of the track), the rock radio hit "All the Way" and of course Moore's hard rocker "Battle Cry".
The three instrumentals (the classical guitar intro "A Minor Prelude", the powerful second half starter "Overture (Procession)" and the closing electric guitar and classical guitar solo piece "Epilogue (Resolution)") and the rocking "Writing on the Wall" are also great songs as well.
Despite the success of Never Surrender, the band's US label at the time RCA wrongly picked a fight with Triumph and the band fled the label after this album and signed to MCA which was run by Eagles manager Irving Azoff at the time and switched the ownership of the band's music from RCA to MCA (Azoff paid RCA for the band's master tapes and bought out the band's RCA deal and he would eventually revert the rights of the band's music over to Triumph) and then in 1995 to Triumph's own label TRC (now known as TML whom re-mastered the album and re-released it in 2004).
IMHO, rock bands should not be on RCA as they had tended to be cheated and mistreated (Styx, Triumph, The Kinks and David Bowie were all shafted by that label). Aside that bit, Never Surrender STILL ROCKS!
Highly recommended! .


Yet Another Great Triumph Reissue
The remastering job is sterling, and the songs are all great, especially the cautionary "A World Of Fantasy", which warns us that we're better off sticking with the tried-and-true than hopping trends. NEVER SURRENDER is yet another great reissue of a Triumph CD. I should know, because sticking with what was real when choosing music to buy at a store caused one of the clerks to call me "sweet pea" because she admired me for buying "real" music whereas so many people under 40 prefer rap and dance-pop. Overall, this CD, along with JUST A GAME, ALLIED FORCES, PROGRESSIONS OF POWER, and THUNDER SEVEN is part of the essential Triumph library.


You can see a complete list of all Triumph discography, or go back to the Triumph tabs. There is also a good guide on how to read guitar tabs here.

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