ELOY — Ocean (review)

Album · 1977 · Non-Metal

4.5/5 · 2015-03-20
aglasshouse

I'm not too familiar with the whole psychedelic and spacey side of progressive rock (apart from Pink Floyd, my favorite band), but I recently discovered Eloy and decided to give them a shot. I checked out their page on here and decided that Ocean was my best bet as an introduction to the band. After listening, I have some opinions that I've decided to share. From what I've seen and heard, Eloy does owe a ton to Pink Floyd for their sound. After all, Pink Floyd did pioneer the space rock genre, so you cannot talk about psychedelic bands without bringing up Floyd. But it is true that Eloy did craft their own unique sound, and it could easily be said that they did a bang up job, especially with the release of this album. One thing I do commemorate Eloy for is the more focus on the space-rock side as opposed to the psychedelic side. What I mean by this is, although they are psychedelic, their sound is more floaty and vague as opposed to strange and experimental. At least more on the former, since the latter isn't gone completely. Although they are space-y, they are able to keep a solid beat going even when their rocking a track for twelve minutes straight, seen on the opener epic of 'Poseidon's Creation'.

When it comes to epics, which this 4-track album consists completely of, you must have differentiating sounds and parts in order to keep the listener hooked. And hook me they did. Every track on this release kept me thoroughly enthralled all the way through. I especially love the beat changes from funk to jazzy in 'Poseidon's Creation'. ' Incarnations of Logos' is a slower track, relying heavily to begin with on heavy ambiatic (my own word for something with ambiance) synthesizer, but does quickly evolve in to a foot tapping melodic track around the second half. The follow-up 'Decay of Logos' takes a more vocal-fronted arrangement, with darker accompanying guitars and some excellent drumming. I would go so far as to say that this song is quite reminiscent of krautrock. Combine that with a catchy riff and you've got yourself a winner.

'Atlantis' Agony..' takes the spot as the longest track on the album, coming in at almost sixteen minutes. It starts out with some slightly in-understandable spoken-word dialogue from Bornemann. It is mostly due to the thickness of his accent, but I guess his voice is good enough that it doesn't really bother me that much. Much like 'Incarnations of Logos', the first half is dedicated to ambiance and free flowing synth, whilst the second half half some funky rocking in it. I mean, if you've heard the rest of the album, this isn't anything special. It is nice, I must say, but I've already seen this before on the album. It does have some nice climactic moments, such as when Bornemann is counting from 84 to 88 around the last five minutes of the song.

My overall opinion of this album is sincerely and highly positive. Although my rating would perhaps be a 4.5 as opposed to a full on 5, this album is definitely somewhere in between. Progressive rock fans as well as space/psychedelic rock fans will love this upon listening. It's confident, free-flowing, and above all a mighty fine album.

(Review written for ProgArchives on 2014-12-21)