DAWN

This album is really beautiful! 4 Stars out of 5. An excellent edition to any progressive rock collection. Not quite amazing enough to be 5 stars, but somewhat close. On this album I hear many elements that would be built upon in the following year in which they produce the classic Ocean (which I believe is worthy of a 5). But this album deserves credit, because a lot of the general sound on Ocean seems to have had its genesis in this album.

What I love about this album is its combination of beautiful classical sounding strings with Eloy's characteristic space rock sound and the surreal keyboard sounds. I believe the concept of this album is supposedly some sort of sequel to Power and the Passion. However the story, at least to me, is way more ambiguous. Where I could easily tell exactly what was going on in Power and the Passion, in Dawn, the lyrics seem to be left up to much more interpretation... I recognize it as a sequel due to the name "Jeanne" appearing once again (Jamie's lover from 6 centuries ago).

Musically this album mixed classical strings with Eloy's space rock sound to make a remarkably unique sound. At times very peaceful and soft and ambient, but other times taking influence from the jam sessions of space rock, and adding spoken lines among the singing, in a tone I describe as "ancient" sounding... yet another element that would be built upon and used in the narration in Ocean. There is also a wonderful chanting part at the beginning of "Lost!?" that flows into a spacey jam.

Another great thing about this album is that it is organized very progressively... most songs flow together as if they were all movements in one large composition, and when they don't, they are only brief pauses. So in essence, Dawn is one 48 minute long song... just the way I like albums like this to be!

Overall this album is very beautiful. If you like symphonic progressive rock, get this album you will not regret it. =) A huge step from their earlier sound to the one fully realized in the classic Ocean, and not too bad of an effort itself. Just barely eludes getting a 5 star, but definitely a great album!!!