by Triumph
~ Epic music ~
As a kid, I loved grand sweeping stories. In elementary school I couldn’t stop reading Greek & Roman mythology. In middle school, I devoured Eddings’ Belgariad series, among others. I like multi-part movie sagas, and 30-issue 7-title crossover comic events. And while Rush mastered the art of the epic album with 2112, Triumph weren’t very far behind in the category of “legendary Canadian power trios with long songs and epic, sweeping vocals.”
This one doesn’t tell a particular story, but for a kid with an overactive imagination who had read way too many fantasy novels, it wasn’t hard to slap this lyrical template on any number of fantasy stories and imagine the moves being played out by some cosmic chess masters pushing people around a map, not unlike Zeus in the old 1960s version of Jason and the Argonauts. The lyrics are just ambiguous enough to apply to any number of stories while still hinting at a much broader societal scope as they’re carried along by big soaring guitar lines that fade in and out around the vocals. The rhythm section isn’t trying to set anything on fire and the way Mike and Gil hold down the song is eminently competent without being overly flashy.
11/10, would listen again