Unknown Soldier

Jess Cox and yer he was known as not being a vocalist, so the 'harmony' point doesn't surprise me

Strangely enough without him, they may have been the most American of all the NWOBHM bands, as they drew just as much from say Grand Funk Railroad and Montrose as they did from say Led Zeppelin.

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Pounding Decibels- A Hard and Heavy History

Trollheart

**** you all: Jess Cox was THE man for the Tygers! I still love "Wild cat" above all other Tygers albums and "Suzie smiled" is an underrated classic! Aw yeah!

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The Batlord

I've known about the band for years and years and I've listened to a few songs, but I never actually listened to an album until a couple weeks ago, which was Wild Cat. I see it as being like a 2nd rate version of Iron Maiden's first two albums. When they were at their best they could compete with that band, but in general they just didn't have the songwriting chops. The best songs on that album all seemed to be rerecorded version of "Euthanasia", which is a fantastic song, but I can definitely see why US left them off the list last year.

Jess Cox was definitely the superior vocalist though. He may not have been as good a singer, but he was better at impersonating Paul DiAnno than the other guy was at impersonating Bruce Dickinson.

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Unknown Soldier

That's why we all love you, as you're guaranteed to like a band's weaker albums But I'll admit "Suzie Smiled" is a good song with a pretty killer riff.

Yer "Euthanasia" was a great song and sure they seemed to use this song as the basis for the Spellbound album and as I said they were pretty one dimensional as a band anyway.

Jess Cox was the gruffer vocalist but I prefer John Deverill overall. Also I wonder how much you think he would've been impersonating Bruce Dickinson anyway, as at the time of Spellbound Bruce Dickinson still wasn't with Iron Maiden (or if he was they hadn't recorded anything) and was still with Samson who were hardly famous, meaning that Bruce Dickinson hadn't yet reached the reverence level he would soon reach. Personally I think John Deverill was more into impersonating Dio and Robert Plant.

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Pounding Decibels- A Hard and Heavy History

The Batlord

I defer to you on the timeline, but from what little I've heard of him he just doesn't really excite me all that much. Jess Cox had some good energy to him though.

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Trollheart

The poor Tygers! I ran an article a year or more about them, in which I deplored the fact that their record company basically forced them into becoming an AOR band (damn you, MCA!) and thus lost them their fanbase. Tygers could have been brilliant, and I don't care what any of you say (how surprising!) --- "Killers" is a great powerpunch on that album, as is "Money" and "Don't touch me there".

Interesting point I made, and it stands up to examination, so check it out if you don't believe me:

Wild Cat --- debut album --- Tygers rockin' --- Tiger on cover bitchin and a badass. Ain't nobody gonna mess with that cat!

Spellbound --- Second album --- Tygers still rockin but headin towards AORville --- Tiger on cover looking still badass but a little unsure, sort of lost and unsure as he pauses, about to cross a gao (Hard rock to AOR?)

Crazy nights --- Third album --- Tygers much more AOR. Give us a single guys! Give us a hit! --- Tyger battling for his life, fighting off the annoying biplanes that might represent MCA execs

The Cage --- Final (real) album --- Tygers totally AOR, even doing a cover of Love Potion Number ****ing Nine for God's sake! --- The tiger is caged, and not happy.

I rest my case.

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Unknown Soldier

See I like John Deverill's style of vocals, so that's always going to grab me.

A good observation there and worth noting at this time that MCA was known as the graveyard by a lot of bands around this time, due to their ability to screw things up for the band. Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers were a prime example.

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Pounding Decibels- A Hard and Heavy History

Unknown Soldier

Overview
The Allied Forces album culminates the golden commercial era of Triumph in superb fashion and saw the band release their most cohesive album overall. In general Allied Forces comes across as a kind of heavy metal, hard rock, AOR and bluesy rock melange in an effort to draw all the band’s styles under just one recording. At this time the Ontario based band were probably only bettered by their even more famous Canadian counterparts Rush, when it came to shifting records by the million as far as Canadian bands went. This all of course happened in an age where album orientated rock which was very much a prime feature of the late 1970s and early 1980s was still a dominant force as far as the US scene went. The band’s previous quality releases of 1979’s Just a Game and 1980’s Progressions of Power had raised the band’s AOR flavoured hard rock yardstick in terms of both quality and sales, and Allied Forces would now be the icing on the cake. The band also had a dynamic stage show in which to showcase their attractive wares in a live setting and were well known for their dynamic stage shows and it was on Allied Forces that the band pushed their envelope even further in what they were capable of putting out. Prior to Allied Forces and one of the reasons why Triumph had been a great band, was that its two frontmen Rik Emmett guitar/vocals and Gil Moore drums/vocals had constantly been at loggerheads with each other and this edgy friction certainly brought both men to their creative fore on the band’s previous albums. On Just a Game Rik Emmett had won out, but on Progressions of Power Gil Moore probably had the last laugh and through this internal strife it had largely been left to bass player and producer Mike Levine to offer the olive branch in times of turmoil. By the time though of Allied Forces, both Rik Emmett and Gil Moore had put aside their differences and were now collaborating better than ever, hence the album name ‘allied forces’ a name to demonstrate the greater cohesion between the band members and the end result would be an album that would be the band’s tightest yet and and a great example of AOR/hard rock at its finest. The keyboard and synthesizer dabblings on their previous albums would again be evident and this time it would be bassist/producer Mike Levine who seemed to have an even more dominant role on the album anyway, who covers this additional musical role. The album’s overtly guitar-orientated album cover on a black surrounding, seemed destined to be a great rock t-shirt to have circa 1980, despite the fact that it comes across as extremely cheesy today. Commerically the album would crack the US Billboard top 30 album chart and its two lead singles the ballad “Magic Power” and the signature “Fight the Good Fight” got plenty of airplay. The album would prove to be a product of its time and the perfect meeting ground for the US AOR and metal scene back in 1981.

Verdict
What’s great about the Allied Forces album, is that not a minute of it seems to be wasted and that actually includes the brief 1 minute instrumentals that certain people see as throwaways and these are “Air Raid” and “Petite Etude” which are really just intros to the title track and the album closer, but they both resonate well to be considered great intros to the two tracks following them, so overall almost all the album’s 39 minutes just seems to fly by especially if you’re a fan of this sound. Of the two frontmen Gil Moore again rocks out hard with the album opener the clicky “Fool for Your Love” and then he’s at his best on the blistering title track “Allied Forces” a song which displays just so much excitement and urgency and is easily one of the best songs of the of the year regardless of genre, and certainly amongst the band’s very best efforts ever. As for Rik Emmett he opens up with the obvious single and ballad “Magic Power” then there is the surprising powered up bluesy rock ‘n’ roll of “Hot Time (In This City Tonight)” and most interestingly he can be heard on the proggy Rush style of the excellent “Fight the Good Fight” one of the album’s singles and one of the band’s best know tracks. He even manages to draw out the pedestrian “Ordinary Man” to great effect as well and turns it into a strong song. Personally though I think he could’ve done better on the album closer “Say Goodbye” despite the high opinions certain reviewers have of it, but the song does benefit from a neat acoustic strumming style which probably makes the song. But some of his best work is on his first priority and that is his screaming firestorm guitar which is impressive throughout the album, especially on the killer “Allied Forces” the title track and it contains some of the best guitar work of the year without a shadow of a doubt. Overall Triumph and Allied Forces rock consistently harder than most AOR bands dared to go, but their radio friendly heavy rock might just be too pastiche for a lot of metal fans. Also another bone of contention, could well be vocalist Rik Emmett’s voice which probably comes across as too thin for most metal tastes, even though he’s not exactly a world away from Burke Shelley of Budgie or the even better known Geddy Lee of Rush. Make no mistake Allied Forces is an album based around a big commercial sound and punching production to match that sound, this would be a formula that a number of 1980s metal bands would soon be pumping out to varying degrees of success as the decade went on, but few could get it as right as Triumph did right here.

Rik Emmett-Guitar/Vocals
Gil Moore- Drums/Vocals
Mike Levine- Bass/Keyboards

Production- Mike Levine

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Pounding Decibels- A Hard and Heavy History