Triumph and Power

Recording

Grand Magus continued its concern with obtaining a strong drum sound, which Christofferson identified as a reaction against the strong focus on the guitar sound. He noted that in heavy metal the drums are extremely important, maybe more important than many people realize. There has been a tendency in "modern" metal to focus too much on a fat guitar sound, resulting in really weak sounding or fake sounding drums. In my experience, the fat guitar sound is a result of the combination of drums and bass guitar, rather than using all space/frequencies for the guitars. You have to have a really solid foundation to make things explode, hence the focus on the drums.

Critical reception

The album has received generally favourable reviews. In Popmatters, Dean Brown praised Triumph and Power for "lift[ing] even the weariest of hearts with the power found in its mountain-shaking riffs, rhythms and vocal hooks" that provided "pure heavy metal made for any decade". Dave Schalek observed in About.com that the album featured stronger songwriting than previous album The Hunt, with many of the songs assuming an "anthem-like quality". Describing Grand Magus as "one of the coolest working the heavy circuit today", Greg Pratt wrote in Brave Words & Bloody Knuckles that the band's traditionalist approach to heavy metal was "meaty, weighty, metal, and proud". Greg Fisher of Sputnik Music similarly described the band as a "prime traditional metal purveyor" and suggested that Triumph and Power was "nothing short of triumphant" in that it "clearly matches up to the output of the luminaries that have inspired it". Considering the band "a subtler Scandinavian answer to Manowar," Ray Van Horn, Jr. praised the band in Blabbermouth for the sincerity of the album's "knocking riffs, whumping beats and mead-backed combat choruses [that] any diehard can appreciate."

Track listing

1. "On Hooves of Gold" - 5:24
2. "Steel versus Steel" - 5:19
3. "Fight" - 4:06
4. "Triumph and Power" - 4:52
5. "Dominator" - 4:20
6. "Arv" - 1:57
7. "Holmgång" - 3:38
8. "The Naked and the Dead" - 3:02
9. "Ymer" - 2:54
10. "The Hammer Will Bite" - 6:54
11. "Blackmoon" - 3:45 (Digipack Bonus Track)