ETERNITY RISE

I've owned La Leyla for years, the American pressing on Annuit Coeptis, with "Noise" instead of "War" (same song, different lyrics, as the American label did want a song critical of the Vietnam War, still too fresh in American minds in '76). I have to say it has some great moments, but a couple of repetitive songs like "Garden" and "Someone Like You" that could have stood a bit more creativity. Of course, I knew that Ramses wasn't going to be the most mindblowing band out there. Eloy certainly had a lot more edge to what they were doing.

Eternity Rise actually seemed to manage making less repetitive material, but none of it reaches the heights of La Leyla, at least nothing offensive here. It seems the Moody Blues and Barclay James Harvest influence really makes itself known on two of the songs. "City Life" is in the BJH and Moodies vein, while "Windy" is more Moodies than anything (all was needed here was a Mellotron, which Winfried Langhorst did own one, but didn't use it much on this album, and not at all on this song). The album features nice material like "Only Yesterday" and "Agitation Play", and "Windy" is a great song, as mentioned. That Moodies influence is simply undeniable there. Much of the rest of the album is German prog as usual: influenced by local (that is, Hannover) contemporaries like Eloy and Jane, as well as other German bands like Grobschnitt and Novalis. This is the type of music you expect off the Sky label: the stuff not mindblowing enough to make it on Brain seemed to be order of the day, at least Ramses is still very good, but not without its flaws. At least it's quite a bit better than that pretty dreadful Light Fantastic, the followup that appeared in 1981. Many of you will probably already know this album if you bought the CD reissue of La Leyla, because it included this album as well. but I went the vinyl route so I only got Eternity Rise now (July 2017), while I owned La Leyla since September 2000. It's probably because the band was not priority number one why I didn't buy Eternity Rise ,much earlier (and me being a bit suspicious of prog released 1978 or after given how the quality really slipped). Glad I bought it, it has nice material, and worth having for fans of late '70s German prog.