Cosmic Slop:  The Forgotten Pop of the Seventies!
[Playlist] [Essays]

Eloy
Taking their name from the "Eloi", the futuristic race of people in H.G. Wells' The Time Machine, Eloy was founded by Frank Bornemann in Germany in 1969, starting out as a band of school chums playing covers of songs by Cream, The Who, The Beatles and The Moody Blues. Shortly thereafter, they won an "newcomers" competition and recorded their first single in 1970.

Their debut, self-titled LP in 1971 featured the short-lived original line-up of Bornemann, Erich Schriever, Manfred Wieczorke, Helmuth Draht, and Wolfgang Stocker. Some internal conflict over the band's prog style led to Schriever leaving the group, after which Eloy began the move towards the "space rock" sub-genre of prog, releasing three more albums with this line-up.

The band split up in 1975, but Bornemann reformed the band with all-new members, and their series of releases on EMI was the group's greatest commerical success to date, featuring the albums Dawn (1976), Ocean (1977), and Silent Cries and Mighty Echoes (1979). But the band had another overhaul of membership, and the new line-up took the band into more of a "space metal" sound. The band continued in this fashon (more or less) until 1984, when they officially broke up with a series of farewell concerts recorded by the BBC.

But in the late 80's, while working as an independent producer, Bornemann hooked up with Michael Gerlach and revived the Eloy name and released several albums of what was still metal-sounding space rock, but now involving sequencers, drum machines and a host of modern technology. 1993-94 saw many original members of Eloy reform to re-record their previous material for the "Chronicles" releases, and their 25th Anniversary Tour in 1994-95.

Our Prog Rock Corner selection for 10/27/96 was "Decay of the Logos" from the 1977 album Ocean (an album that also features the challengingly-named track "Atlantis' Agony at June 5th 8498, 13 P.M. Gregorian Earthtime").

-Chuck


Prog Rock Corner Index
Our impression of "Decay of the Logos":

While Eloy are clearly in space rock territory, and are often compared to middle-era Pink Floyd, there is no mistaking the influence of early Rush on this particular track. Great dynamic ups and downs, ethereal noodlings to balls-out rockin' - and the most ridiculous German-accented English this side of Udo Kier. Pity the poor "wictims" of which Bornemann speaks!


To find out more about Eloy:

Get "Eloy-tened" at the Eloy web site.



Please report any problems or concerns regarding this site to the webmaster.
This document last modified