OCEAN

The album that introduced me to this much-loved band from Germany, I was immediately put off by the overly-familiar PINK FLOYD sound palette: treatment of drums, bass sound, guitar sounds and stylings, and even keyboard tricks and twists but more, even the pacing and framework of the songs' constructions are as if straight from a Pink Floyd tribute band. The music is nice, it's their own with their own story & message (and the drummer is more dynamic than Nick Mason), but it's so familiar! Were it not for the accented English singing of guitarist Frank Bornemann, one would think they were just trying to be a German Pink Floyd. But, therein lies the differentiating grace: those heavily reverberated vocals telling their space age cosmic stories in that half-spoken Dylan-esque voice.The songs themselves have never been memorable due to my preoccupation with the sound familiarities (and my much-self-publicized barrier to lyrics and their messages). Plus, there just doesn't seem to be as much going on here as there could be (besides the story telling)--occasional interesting synthesizer work and the odd attempt to flail out a guitar solo or two. The drums and drumming are the best part! One can definitely hear/feel the band's former Krautrock roots here, as well.

A 3.5 star album that I'm rating up for the excellent "Decay of Logos" groove-jam and the fine production (for its time) throughout.