NEMRUD

For a band, producing a self-titled album several releases into your career makes a certain statement - it suggests a certain maturity has been reached, that you've found your feet, established your sound, and are ready to put forth a distinctive manifesto of what your musical project is all about.

In the case of Nemrud's self-titled third album, the Turkish space rock unit seems to have decided that their musical mission is to pick up the distinctive style of Eloy and carry it forwards into a new era, with the end result being an album which, if you slipped it into the Eloy discography, would probably be acclaimed as the best thing they've done since the 1970s. Mert Göçay's performance, in particular, with his distinctive guitar tone and his vocal style, puts me in mind of nothing less than the Eloy of the Ocean/Silent Cries and Mighty Echoes sort of era.

Nonetheless, it would be very wrong to write this album off as a mere exercise in cloning the Eloy sound; more modern electronics and synthesisers are integrated with a greater smoothness than I think Eloy themselves managed, and as with the preceding Ritual the extensive instrumental breaks have a character of their own. Whilst I wouldn't call it an all-time classic, I certainly think it's the best Nemrud release I've heard so far, and certainly deserves to get them attention from anyone who enjoys the particular brand of space rock that Eloy pioneered and which few others have taken forwards (Anyone's Daughter perhaps being the only example that comes to mind).