OCEAN

In a vast world of space prog, for the longest time all I ever knew was Pink Floyd, Pink Floyd and Pink Floyd. About a year ago, I made it my mission to get a space prog album NOT made by Pink Floyd, and the most tantalising one was the highest rated space prog album outside a Pink Floyd album. I'm talking about Eloy's OCEAN album.

This is what I would call symphonic space prog probably due to the mellotron usage; it's very abundant on this album along with various synths. The bass is another instrumental factor here as it's very present and powerful. The track ''Incarnation of the Logos'' is the best showcasing for the bass. The guitars and drums are a bit more discrete, but get the job done which is all I really care about.

It can get problematic vocally; Frank Bornemann's timbre is of an acquired taste as it is quite nasal to put it lightly. There's also supposed to be some story about Poseidon, Atlantis and humanity's obsession with technological progresses, but I really never bothered too much other than the fact that the story is pretty cheesy. And it seems all of the vocal sections sound the same.

My biggest complaint is the track partially titled ''Atlantis's Agony''. It's fifteen plus minutes long, but the first 7-8 are spent inside of a drone with the cheesiest announcer at the beginning of it. I wouldn't mind the long droning if the payoff was great or there was no payoff, but Eloy try to make an exquisite ending that for my money doesn't exactly work. That pretty much lost the album a star right there. Now, I've made more complaints for OCEAN than warranted, so let me conclude by saying that ''Poseidon's Creation'' and ''Incarnation of the Logos'' are top quality progressive rock tracks.

Not bad space prog that can really appeal to the symphonic progsters out there.