THE BEST OF ELOY VOL. 2 - THE PRIME 1976-1979

Just like with "Chronicles II" (versus "I"), "Eloy" released a weaker compilation with this "Best Of 1976-1979" than with their previous attempt which was covering their most psychedelic period (72-75).

This work compiles three albums. The first being "Dawn". A concept album with lots of instrumentation which was not really my cup of tea.

I understand that it might be difficult to choose songs from a concept and put it on some sort of "best of". But taking "Awakening" and "Between the Times" was not a good idea. Vocals are dreadful and the latter is a collage of four insipid parts "Between the Times", "Memory Flash", "Appearance of the Voice" and "Return of the Voice" for a total of just over six minutes.

Fortunately " The Sun Song" and "The Midnight Flight" have not been forgotten. But IMO, the best song of this album was "The The Dance in Doubt and Fear". Invisible here. I must be dreaming!

They would have been more inspired to have featured a song as "Atlantis' Agony" than the weak "Decay Of The Logos" from their very good "Ocean" album. As if space on a CD costs additional money...This compilation is short enough to have allowed this swap. It would have been a benefit for the ones who are willing to discover this period of their career and get one of their very good song available here.

The band will even repeat the very good "The apocalypse" from the excellent "Silent Cries..." on both compilation efforts. OK, on "Chronicles" it was a shorter and a re-reworked version, but still...The second best from this album is also featured. It is a clone of "SOYCD" but a very pleasant trip into "Floyd" 's repertoire.

I would recommend more the casual listener to get hold of "Ocean" and "Silent Cries" to have a better idea of what the band has released in those days; rather than buying this compil. Not that it is a bad one, but due to the track selection it is too limited (and there was additional space to use to avoid this).

Three stars.