SILENT CRIES AND MIGHTY ECHOES

Eloy goes off the deepend here, blatantly ripping off Pink Floyd and Tangerine Dream. Certainly anathema to any Pink Floyd connoissuer, Silent Cries And Mighty Echoes, is virtually unlistenable when bearing in mind the luster of the Pink Floyd jewels Wish You Were Here and Animals. I`m suprised there weren`t any lawsuits here.

Their German countrymen, Jane, caught flak a couple of years previous for their Pink Floyd copycat album Between Heaven & Hell from the German press, but at least it maintained some of the inherit Jane trademarks. Pink Floyd parallellisms notwithstanding, for those who can`t get enough of that Flodian dreaminess, there are definitely some moments to be savoured here with sweeping synths and spacey guitar passages. If one finds Frank Boreman`s atrocioius vocals unbearable, a spectral wordless female vocal briefly saves the day here on a section of the 14 minute showpiece The Apocalypse which even then recalls the female vocals on Floyd`s Great Gig In The Sky.

Unless one has been hiding under a proverbial rock for the most of their life, Pink Floyd and Tangerine Dream similtudes are egregious here. But those who have already acquired a taste for Eloy through previous or subsequent albums will most definitely find something redeemable here without question.