Eloy - Eloy (1971/2008 Remastered & Expanded Edition)
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Album: Eloy - Eloy (Remastered & Expanded Edition)
Released: 1971 (2008)
Genre: Krautrock
Gnosis Rating: 8.55
Source: Revisited Records - 531077-9
Gimmix sleeve digipak reissue of the rare first album from Eloy. Bornemann has pretty much disowned the album because it is in essence primordial Eloy, with a sound that was typical of the time but didn't capture the sound of things to come. Bornemann plays with a distorted psyched out sound with none of the fluidity that would embody his style later on. Taken for what it is its actually a pretty good album and could easily have been mistaken for any of the underground hard rock/proto-prog bands on the German circuit at the time. Just don't expect the space rock sound - that was a year or two away. This comes with three bonus tracks as well as the die-cut garbage can cover. - Laser's Edge
Eloy's debut album is one of Germany's 70's heavy weights and one of my personal favs. This stonker of an album captures the wonderful underground 70's krautrock magic, clearly standing up though as a very different sounding Eloy than subsequent album would prove for sure. Like so many great 70's German prog recordings, Eloy's debut album was produced by …..yes you guessed it Conrad Plank. The overall sound is dark and deep with a heavy focus on electric guitar and percussion. From this albums original lineup, 3 of the 5 would stay behind to work on subsequent albums and retain the core of ELOY….Frank Bornemann (Guitar, Harmonica, Percussion), Manfred Wieczorke (Guitar, Bass, Vocals) and Wolfgang Stocker (Bass) with Erich Schriever (Lead Vocals, Keyboards) and Helmuth Draht (Drums) exiting after recording this masterpiece. Lead vocalist Erich Schriever has actually a great tock voice and adds that extra rough sound which adorns this album. Songs are exploratory and full of great 70's instrumentation with loads of wild guitar solos and great percussive sounds. Their overall sounds is quite heavy and does not yet introduce the space sound Eloy became associated with but I put this album in a different category and think of it as Eloy MK2. I only wish Eloy had recorded a few more albums with this lineup….brilliant stuff.. - James Unger
Taking their name from H.G. Wells' "The Time Machine", Eloy always exhibited an interest in science-fiction, especially on later fantasy and sci-fi conceptual works. Eloy originated in Essen, in early 1971, and in their early days, they played a heavy rock, highly derivative of the likes of Deep Purple, Uriah Heep, et al.; otherwise British styled hard-rock and ballads.
On their debut LP, Eloy were not that distinctive a band, and had a very British hard-rock sound, with some psychedelic touches and a couple of powerful rock ballads included for contrast. Paradoxically, although it is now revered as a classic by hard-rock fans, Frank Bornemann's own words sum up what was thought of their debut at that time: "We were at that time still amateurs ... I now think that album to be fruitfully bad", a mite dismissive really of what has proved with time to be a really good album, and the roots of the unique Eloy style. - "The Crack In The Cosmic Egg"
Towards the end of the swinging sixties when I founded Eloy, German bands mainly played all the anglo american hits and performed in clubs, youth-centers and in the ballrooms of village pubs. Tired of the constant repetition as well as the pressure incurred in emulating the high creative level of our peers, we started to compose our own songs, mixing them in with the many cover-songs we played during hour-long performances. Spurred on by the increasing positive response our audiences had to our own creations, we applied for a record contract and finally, in the spring of 1971 we actually signed up with a major-label to record our first LP.
It was an era of great creative revolution, a time of excitement and experimentation, everything was tried out in order to discover, set and maintain new accents in rock music. Regulations as to how this or that had to be done in order to fit a commercial market did not even exist, nor were any regulations propagated by record companies or from the media. Everything was allowed.There were no barriers strong enough to withstand the new impulses emerging from the music business and the creative freedom generated by all the new bands that were popping up everywhere like mushrooms. The musicians at that time could, unfiltered, realize their visions and with their work wrote music history! Pink Floyd, Genesis, Jethro Tull, Yes and Deep Purple, just to name a few, started their carriers and have to date set the pace for conceptual content as well as a new sound. In England almost every new band with an interesting profile landed themselves with a record contract and instantly presented themselves with an album, which in turn sparked off younger bands waiting on the starting line, to make a name for themselves and fight for their righteous place in the pantheon of rock-music history.
This trend flourished also in Germany in the early 70's and so, we, along with many other young bands, got our first major break and recor ded our first album. Each member of the band was naturally inspired, each to varying degrees, by the new sensational musical creations which not only came over to us like an invasion from England, but also dominated the international music business. In the light of this fullness and wealth of different influences we found it difficult to clearly define our musical direction as well as form an independent identity. In spite of many polarizing positions taken in relation to our artistic direction, we did manage to put an album together which accurately illustrated and reflected the spirit of this epoch. An epoch in which everyone was involved in the search for something »special«. With the birth of »Krautrock« Eloy was created, but not fully born and so I view this debut album as the band's embryonic stage, the spirit and profile of which I was later to develop and which would effect and influence my life for decades to come. - Frank Bornemann
1 Today (06:10)
2 Something Yellow (08:16)
3 Eloy (06:19)
4 Song Of A Paranoid Soldier (04:55)
5 Voice Of Revolution (03:10)
6 Isle Of Sun (06:08)
7 Dillus Roady (06:36)
8 Walk Alone (Bonus Track) (02:47)
9 Daybreak (1970) (Bonus Track) (02:45)
10 Vibrations Of My Mind (Bonus Track) (03:35)
Frank Bornemann - guitars, vocals
Helmut Draht - drums
Erich Schriever - lead vocals
Wolfgang Stöcker - bass
Manfred Wieczorke - keyboards
One of the most popular German bands of the '70s, Eloy went through several stages in their long career, with the only constant member being guitarist/vocalist Frank Bornemann. Transforming from a political-themed hard rock band to a spacey progressive rock band who sounded something like a mix of Jethro Tull and Pink Floyd, the group in later formations would move toward a more accesible hard rock sound with strong progressive elements.
Eloy was formed in 1969 by Frank Bornemann (guitar, harmonica, percussion), Erich Schriever (lead vocals, keyboards), Manfred Wieczorke (guitar, bass, vocals), Helmuth Draht (drums), and Wolfgang Stocker (bass). Taking their name from that of a human race in the book Time Machine by H.G. Wells, the band released their first single, "Daybreak," in 1970 and put out their eponymous debut album the following year. Filled with conventional hard rock with political statements, the album is an anomaly in the band's catalogue. Schriever, who was responsible for the band's political lyrics, left the group after Eloy's debut, as did Draht, who was replaced by Fritz Randow.
Inside, released in 1973, consolidated the group as a full-on progressive rock-styled outfit. After the album, which fared decently, Stocker left the band, to be replaced by Luitjen Janssen. Floating (1974) and Power and the Passion increased Eloy's reputation and success, and the latter record was recorded with second guitarist Detley Schwaar. It was also the group's first concept album. The band then broke up in 1975, with some members of the group wanting to continue to write spacey progressive rock concept albums, while others wanted a more restrained approach.
Eloy resurfaced in 1976 with Bornemann as the producer and mastermind behind the band, who featured new members Klaus-Peter Matziol (bass, vocals), Detlev Schmidtchhen (keyboards, vocals), and Jurgen Rosenthal (drums, vocals). With this lineup, Eloy became the best-selling German act of their time, with increasingly ornate concept albums such as Dawn (1976) and the spacey Ocean. 1978 saw the release of Eloy Live and 1979's Silent Cries and Mighty Echoes was the band's highest-selling record.
Schmidtchhen and Rosenthal then left the group to go solo and were replaced by Hannes Folberth and Jim McGillveray, respectively. Eloy also added guitarist Hannes Arkona. The new lineup released Colours in 1980, which saw the band start to abandon their spacey elements to pursue a more hard rock sound. 1981's Planets and 1982's Time to Turn were two parts of a science-fiction concept album that found the group's sound increasingly dominated by keyboards. The band released Performance and Metromania in 1984 and then split due to musical differences after a series of farewell concerts in England.
Eloy returned in 1988, this time as a duo featuring Bornemann and multi-instrumentalist Michael Gerlach. The first Eloy record with this lineup was Ra, which saw a return to the sound of Colours. It was followed by Destination (1992). Both records did quite well on the German charts. Several members of Eloy re-formed in 1993 to re-record older tracks for Chronicles I, followed by Chronicles II the next year. In 1994, the band recorded The Tides Return Forever, which featured the return of Klaus-Peter Matziol. 1998 saw the trio release Ocean 2: The Answer with new drummer Bodo Schopf . - Biography by Geoff Orens, AMG
Taking their name from the "Eloi", the futuristic race of people in H.G. Wells' The Time Machine, ELOY was initially formed in 1969 in Germany. Inspired by THE SHADOWS and THE BEATLES, they became one of the major bands in the progressive rock scene highly influenced by the space rock of PINK FLOYD. They started off in Germany as a hard rock band with a political bent, but soon drifted into a spacier progressive rock sound. They have had a number of turnovers, with a major split in the 1980s that resulted in a move into more of a mainstream direction. Based mainly on founder Frank BORNEMANN's guitar solos, their music evolved to include more synthesizers and choirs.
They produced many albums between 1971 and 1998 with different line-ups. Their best period is the mid to late-70's with the trippier space-rock of "Inside" and "Floating" (with Manfred WIECZORKE later of JANE). "Dawn" is actually one of the better of the symphonic-era ELOY albums, perhaps even the best. "Ocean" is a concept album about Atlantis, and one of the pillar albums of the German symphonic scene, and certainly worth checking out. They followed up with "Silent Cries and Mighty Echoes", the year later to even greater success. During 1993-1994, ELOY released three best of collections and it wasn't until 1994 with the release of "The Tides Return Forever", that they recorded and toured again is released and the band reappeared live on stage for several successful shows in Germany. Their last album "Ocean 2", released in 1998, was a surprising come back of a progressive rock band, which stopped recently their stage-appearances. (www.progarchives.com)
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