LA LEYLA / ETERNITY RISE

Everyone has one of those special albums. La Leyla that album for me. I picked it up in a cut out bin in the early eighties. At that time the only Progressive Rock I was listening to was Rush, Styx, Kansas and Saga.

Heavy keys through out. Clean melodic guitar leads that weave in and out of the powerful background the keys lay. Mostly organ and moog. There is alot of mellotron sounding chorus also, but I am not sure if it is mellotron.

The album was produced by the late Conny Plank who handled a majority of German Prog in the seventies. It was co-produced by Klaus Hess of the band Jane. There are alot of simalarites between Jane and Ramses thought Ramses uses a much larger arsenal of keys, and are far more dynamic.

I highly recommend this album to those who prefer thick, rich progressive rock that leans slightly to the dark ie, minor keys. The lyrics are a bit silly, but the music is not.

While La Leyla seems to be a bit of a darker affair where you can hear alot of the Hess/Jane influences, Eternity Rise which came two years later is a little more varied. The acoustic guitars show up and the moogs are a little more prominent.