POWER AND THE PASSION

Oh, Well, I remember when I first heard this album in the late 70´s.And it reminded me of everything I thought it was wrong with prog at the time: overblown, pretentious, with bad lyrics and a story not well developed. Yes, I was too harsh. Several years later I got the CD and today it doesn´t sound that bad. However, I tend to agree with Kenneth Levine´s review. Eloy was not ready for such undertaken. They would soon prove they could tackle greater concepts like they did on Dawn and Ocean, but clearly on Power And The Passion they were still too green.

Of course there are good moments on this CD, specially on the instrumental side, with some fine Hammond Organ runs provided by the talented Manfred Wieczorke, who by the way added other keyboard instruments here like mellotron and synths to his sounds pallette. Luitjen Janssen´s bass work and Fritz Randow drumming are also of note, but the faulty and tentative compositions didn´t help much. And if the story was not original and hardly well developed, the lyrics were lame, definitly. Sometimes downright embarassing like on The Zany Magician which seemed to be written by an eight year old kid. And they were made even worse by the heavy accent of Frank Bornemann´s vocals. He was still leaning heavily on Jethro Tull for the vocal lines and even for some of the song structures.

Although I think Eloy was an essential band for the German rock scene in general, and the prog one in particular, there is no denying that they took some time to find their own sound and style. And this CD was another step into that way, albeit not really that succesful. I rather hear Inside and Floating than Power And The Passion, even today. this is not a good starting point to get to know this great group.