Monday, November 10, 2014

Triumph - Thunder Seven

Today (November 10th) marks the thirtieth anniversary of Thunder Seven, the seventh studio album from Canada’s own Triumph. The Platinum seller spent thirty weeks on the US Billboard Album chart, peaking at number 35. It also went to number 43 in both Canada and Sweden.


Side one starts with “Spellbound”. As the lead single, this mid-tempo rocker about a guy completely captivated by a beauty peaked at number 10 on the US Billboard Mainstream Rock chart.

The B-side to the promotional single, “Rock Out, Roll On”, has a heavy, dramatic tone to it.

The B-side to the first single is “Cool Down”. The acoustic guitar gives its opening a country rock vibe before the whole thing shifts into a heavy rock sound. In a lot of ways, the entire track reminds me of Led Zeppelin. If the song wasn’t intentionally done in tribute, you could have fooled me. I liked it a lot.

The positive motivational “Follow Your Heart”, the second single, went to number 88 on the US Billboard Hot 100 and number 13 on the US Mainstream Rock chart.

Side two touches quite a bit on the theme of time-travel. The first track is “Time Goes By”, the album’s longest at just over six minutes.

“Midsummer’s Daydream” is a brief and beautiful instrumental track done on acoustic guitar.

The vocal performance on “Time Cannon” is very interesting, done in an a capella round fashion.

“Killing Time” was released as a promotional single in North America. The lyrics point out the fleeting nature of time and how we need to make the most of it before it is too late.

“Stranger in a Strange Land”, the B-side to the second single, is next.

The album closes with the a bluesy instrumental track “Little Boy Blues”.

Overall, I found Thunder Seven to be a pretty good listening experience. There are definitely track I would like to listen to again in the future.

For my review of the band’s 1983 album Never Surrender, click here.

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