OCEAN

Back in my younger days in the 1980s I was introduced to ELOY with "Poseidon's Creation". I still remember when we made fun of the lead singer's bad English pronunciation when he tried to utter the lyrics "son of god and daughter of earth", but ended up sounding like "zanofgot end totrofhrth". Although musically listenable along the line of other prog rock obligatory stuff, I considered them a blatant FLOYD derivatives, who did not deserve my special attention. And what also pissed me off was that many considered them as a part of Krautrock movement, which I always found a bit offensive. Apart from the fact that they come from Germany, there is nothing else to align them with the true innovators like KRAFTWERK, CAN, AMON DUUL, NEU, FAUST... ELOY is basically an Anglo-American space-rock/symphonic prog that just happens to be played by a German band.

I just revisited my 10 years old negative review of the compilation "Timeless Passages" here on Progarchives, and found it a sort of contravening to my recent, generally affirmative, individual albums reviews. Perhaps I have developed a soft spot for ELOY finally, or I have become dumber and more lenient in judgements with growing old. Or I have developed a more sympathetic attitude towards Frank Bornemann's singing. Or it is maybe just a question of different perspective. Nonetheless, I nowadays enjoy listening to ELOY more than I did back in the past. Floyd ripoffs? Maybe, but who cares? It sounds nice and relaxing, even demanding to some extent. And how not to love this iconic cover artwork depicting the Hellenic deity Poseidon holding a skull-staff while his head is decomposing into a galactic formation? A concept album again? Yes, why not? Some ancient Hellenic mythology this time - Poseidon, Logos, Atlantis, Creation, Incarnation, Gregorian Earth-time... Naive and childlike? Yes, just like the behaviour of nowadays politicians and world leaders... so where is the problem?

The first twenty minutes of the album (A side of the vinyl: "Poseidon's Creation" and "Incarnation of the Logos") is perhaps the pinnacle of ELOY music. Spacey keyboards, minor chord atmosphere, odd time signatures, "galloping" bass, ominous drumming and tasty guitar fillings are impeccably played and produced, and without unnecessary strings and choirs from the previous album. B side bogs down a bit and some parts get boring. "Atlantis Agony..." is really agonising for the first never-ending 8 minutes, then finally something starts to develop and brings this album to a close on a decent note. "Ocean" is perhaps the best ELOY album, actually very close to "Dawn", but again for many reasons, some of which still standing from my old negative review, I cannot give the highest score. Yet, for this type of genre it is an essential listen. 4 and 1/2 stars.