Eloy: Silent Cries and Mighty Echoes (1979)

I could hardly believe it! I didn’t think Eloy could pull off another album almost as great as their 1977 masterpiece, Ocean. Silent Cries and Mighty Echoes was their followup release (excluding a 1978 live album, that is), released in 1979. My expectations were low. Prog rock was over by 1979. The increasingly corporate music industry brought an end to prog by then. Most prog bands packed it in by this time. Those who didn’t were often forced to record shorter, more radio friendly music, or if they didn’t, their label threatened to drop them.

But for some reason, Eloy in 1979 did not make any compromises and made another great album, Silent Cries And Mighty Echoes. The band seemed to forget that prog rock was over, and that’s actually a compliment (I noticed Germany’s prog rock scene had more staying power, than say England’s).

The album opens with “Astral Entrance”. It starts with droning string synths and David Gilmour-like lead guitar. From hearing this, it sounds exactly like a missing piece of Pink Floyd’s “Shine On You Crazy Diamond” from Wish You Were Here. This album received a lot of criticisms thanks to this, but contrary to some, this album, except for “Astral Entrance”, is generally not a Pink Floyd ripoff.

The next cut, “Master of Sensation” proves that. The vocals are uniquely Frank Bornemann (the band’s guitarist and vocalist). Detlev Schmidtchen whips out more great spacy string synths like he did on Ocean, also he uses more Hammond organ than he ever did since he joined the band in 1976 starting with the album Dawn (1976). The next cut, “The Apocalypse” is a lengthy, 15 minute epic, and is definately the finest moment of the album. This is everything you expect from late ’70s Eloy: lengthy passages with ridiculously spacy synthesizers.

“De Labore Solis” sounds like a rewrite of Ocean’s “Incarnation of Logos”, even has that similar atmospheric backdrop of string synths, although the tone of the song isn’t as sinister as Ocean (in fact, the tone of the whole album isn’t as sinister as Ocean’s). “Pilot to Paradise” points to the direction they would be headed towards in the 1980s (like 1980’s Colours, 1981’s Planets, and 1982’s Time to Turn), except without the heavy guitar riffs.

The final cut, “Mighty Echoes” starts off with lyrics that go “Just take a pebble and cast it to the silent sea”. When I hear this, I can’t help but think of Emerson, Lake & Palmer (think “Take a Pebble” off their self-entitled debut) even if it sounds nothing like ELP.

This was Eloy’s last album with Detlev Schmidtchen and drummer Jürgen Rosenthal. They both left Eloy after this album due to ego problems, formed Ego On the Rocks and released an album called Acid in Wounderland (1981). Regardless, Silent Cries is by far the best album I heard from 1979, which I highly recommend if you’re in to the German prog rock scene.
Year of release: 1979
– Frank Bornemann: vocals, guitar
– Klaus-Peter Matziol: bass
– Detlev Schmidtchen: keyboards
– Jürgen Rosenthal: drums