TIMELESS PASSAGES - THE VERY BEST OF ELOY

Listening to "Timeless Passages" (which I would rather call "Endless Boredom") is a very painful 155 minutes long experience. It is supposed to be a more or less comprehensive anthology of ELOY's career, from 1976 "Dawn" to 1998 "Ocean 2". But if these are "the best" moments of their music, I am surely not going to spend a cent on buying any of studio albums.

There are serious flaws in ELOY music and for me only two are enough. The first, a terrible vocal, which sounds so ridiculous that is impossible to take these guys seriously when singing about Logos, Mental Force, Sphinx, Poseidon, Odyssey, Dawn, Tide and other "higher" topics taken from the obligatory catalogue of "space rock". The guy, whom I never bothered to remember his name, is an awful singer and his English is bad. At moments it is plain funny to hear his singing.

The second, the whole musical concept of these guys is firmly stuck in the mid-1970s PINK FLOYD, TANGERINE DREAM and late 1970s ALAN PARSONS PROJECT. OK, the tutors are musical giants and many artists draw inspiration from them in quite original way, but the pupils in this case are F-mark students. It can be fine to try to emulate or cover, or cite the influences but when you do that in such a bad way, with so little originality and even without some essential composing skills, then we have a problem.

And still, there is the third one; prog-rock haters would certainly cherish the bands like ELOY - everything the people don't like in progressive rock is present here in a condensed form: dubious SF "concepts"; overblown lyrics; sterile and "metallic" production; excessive use of monotonous synth keyboards; aimless guitar solos and dull and bloodless rhythm section; long tracks without any purpose. It is rather ironic that one of the best songs on this compilation is pop-hit "Rainbow" from 1988. Even though performed in a creamy style of 1980s ALAN PARSONS's tear-invoking sleazy ballads, it is at least a concise and developed pop song.

If you like space-rock, there is plenty of more innovative, courageous, artistically relevant and more listenable bands. If you like German rock, forget about ELOY and start discovering any of real progressive and experimental Kraut-rock ensembles. Don't waste time and money on this.

On a less critical note, ELOY may exactly be a perfect start for teenage kids to develop a sensation and understand the elements of "ambitious" rock music, whatever that means. In that context, ELOY can be a part of 8th grader collection, together with QUEEN and IRON MAIDEN for instance (I am referring to the time of early 1980s and its music scene).

For collectors (are there any?) there is only one track, previously unreleased 1994 live version of "Poseidon's Creation", worth mentioning. For all others, do yourself a favour and stay away from ELOY!