Author: Peter Podbrežnik
Artist: Eloy
Label: EMI Records
Released: 1975
Rating: 4/5
With “Power And The Passion”, Eloy made a major stylistic leap toward a more refined, symphonic take on space rock. Their sound up to then, which in many ways was heavily shaped by heavy rock and rested mainly on the interplay between Bornemann’s electric guitar and Wieczorke’s Hammond organ, already sounded pretty retro by the mid-’70s next to the more advanced forms of progressive rock, and the band urgently had to take another step forward in its gradual evolution from one of the first German hard rock bands into world-renowned heavyweights of space rock.
“Power And The Passion” was their first concept album, which would soon become pretty much standard practice for them and would eventually lead to Frank’s split with the band’s lineup of the time, who didn’t go along with his progressive ideas. As you’d expect from space rock dreamers who often tried to lead the listener, through their music and lyrics, to an almost mystical experience, it’s a sci-fi story about time travel. It’s nothing special, especially when you compare it with the huge pile of all sorts of books and films made on the topic, but it still blends nicely into the music and the mood of the album, and that’s what counts most in any good concept record. It was kind of to be expected that a band that took its name from the people in a beloved Wells novel about time travel would sooner or later tackle a concept like this in its own way.
It revolves around a French lad named Jamie, the son of some brilliantly mad scientist. The latter happens to be none other than the inventor of a special pill that can send its user through time (Introduction). One day, bored and snooping around his father’s laboratory, Jamie discovers the aforementioned pill and uses it to go back to the Middle Ages, to 1358 to be precise (Journey Into 1358). There he runs into a comely peasant girl named Shannie, and the two quickly get tangled up in a passionate affair. Even before that, he gets her hooked on smoking marijuana, which the rosy-cheeked girl, used to hard work on the farm and a phony Catholic morality, takes to in no time (Love Over Six Centuries). After the serfs’ uprising against the tyrannical count and Shannie’s unsuccessful suitor (Mutiny), Jamie lands in a dungeon (Imprisonment) until his love from the past frees him with the help of an absent-minded wizard (Daylight). At Jamie’s request, the senile wizard then sends him back to his own time, where he ends up on the doorstep of Notre-Dame (Thoughts Of Home, The Zanny Magician, Back Into The Present, The Bells Of Notre-Dame). No metaphysics, no deep messages, just a fairly simple romantic tale about two completely different worlds separated by time meeting each other. Frank would go on to get quite a bit better at building sci-fi concepts, but it’s still a pretty solid start, at a time when concept albums were hitting peak popularity in prog rock.
As for the music itself, you can’t miss the noticeable improvements over the predecessor “Floating” (1974). The symphonic arrangements have become far richer and more varied, since keyboardist Wieczorke finally broadened his keyboard palette beyond his earlier obsession with the Hammond to include clavinet, mini moog and even Mellotron. Bornemann’s guitar lines are in places still pretty punchy in that heavy rock way, but they no longer take the dominant spot. Here and there, when the organ and guitar lines clash with each other, that influence of Hensley’s Uriah Heep, especially obvious in the early years, still comes to the surface, but in places it’s already pretty subordinate to the symphonic subtlety brought in by the colorful keyboards. The guitar sound has also clearly gotten richer, since Frank was joined on this album by another guitarist, Detlef Schwaar. The latter wasn’t as talented as Frank and mostly sticks to rhythm guitar, but he’s key to creating some of the multi-part, even three-part harmonies, especially in the punchier, heavy rock sections. The rhythm section, still the domain of Janssen’s melodic bass and Randow’s massive drums, was in my opinion comparable with the rhythm sections of some of the best prog bands of the time, even though it didn’t come out of jazz the way it usually did in prog. There are noticeably fewer instrumental jams this time, and priority goes to deliberately structured arrangements. The band has clearly progressed in writing compositions that actually hold together. My only sharper complaint is aimed at some of the longer psychedelic sections, which often include spoken words. These psychedelic sections occasionally come off a bit monotonous, but that’s pretty much a constant with most psychedelic-tinged music. Still, “Power And The Passion” flows very well from one track to the next, the story comes to life in them successfully, and the album is dynamic enough to be a pleasure to listen to every time, even if I can’t call it a masterpiece.
“Introduction” is a short but majestic opener, featuring the mighty sound of church organs, melancholic guitar passages and choir-like vocal harmonies. It manages to pull the listener into the mood of the concept right away and sets the stage for the dramatic continuation. “Journey Into 1358”, one of the punchiest pieces on the album, opens with a calm, melancholic vocal, a bluesy guitar and gentle piano accompaniment. After this melodic lull before the white-hot storm, heralded by a sudden rumble of bass, the first transition brings in a hard-hitting riff built on a galloping rhythm and the dynamic sound of the Hammonds, all accompanied by Bornemann’s high screams, or rather shrieking. Traces of this section can still be found today in the work of some German heavy metal bands. Of course, I’d be seriously exaggerating if I called this solid composition progressive metal already.
“Love Over Six Centuries” is one of the three longer pieces on the album, and it has a strong psychedelic component. Here too we get a calm intro, with a melancholic, distant-sounding vocal and a bluesy guitar. This lasts until the instrumental section kicks in, where bass, guitar and Hammond lines flow into each other. The Hammond sound at times unmistakably veers toward Hensley’s Uriah Heep, especially in its interplay with the punchy guitar lines and drum fills. Another psychedelic section follows, with mini moog sounds and a dialogue between Jamie (Frank, who fairly unsuccessfully tries to hide his trademark German accent) and Shannie (special guest Mary Davis-Smith). This is the part of the story where the two get to know each other and Shannie tells how her father wanted to force her to marry the son of a local nobleman, but she rebelled and ran away. Jamie then offers her a roll of “miracle weed”, and once she tries it, she’s totally taken (the whole thing feels like a cheap glorification of intoxicating substances, and if it weren’t for a band that tied this to its psychedelic trips, I’d have had a few harsh words to say about this part of the story). This psychedelic “daydreaming” is followed by another hard-hitting heavy rock section with plenty of “screams” and punchy organ passages, joined by a bluesy guitar solo.
“Mutiny” is another longer piece, again with a calm intro on piano, ambient clavinet sounds and a melancholic, distant-sounding vocal. The guitar and a marching drum rhythm eventually lead the composition into a dramatic section where the majestic sound of the Hammond reigns. Frank once again doesn’t skimp on his trademark bluesy passages. The composition then shifts into a faster tempo over a rattling bass, layered keyboards and solid rhythm guitar work. Frank’s vocal is solidly backed by the majestic lines of the organ and guitar interplay. The closing stretch brings another medieval-flavored epic motif over marching drums and the weeping lines of both guitars, where some heavy metal elements can be heard again. Definitely one of the three central pieces on the album, closed out by the majestic orchestral sound of the Mellotron.
After two longer works comes the three-minute “Imprisonment”, which opens with the sounds of the jailer’s footsteps and creaking doors. After an ambient keyboard intro and a melancholic, distant-sounding vocal (which is also Frank’s last attempt to sound like Ian Anderson of Jethro Tull), we get a melodic interplay between guitar and keyboards. The keyboards in the background do a great job of creating a sad mood. “Daylight”, a direct continuation of the previous piece, is a much faster-paced number with a dramatic vocal and dynamic drums. The cataclysmic atmosphere of the piece comes from an excellent interweaving of guitar, organ and bass. “Thoughts Of Home” is a very short affair with clavinet and a melancholic vocal, and it basically serves as a kind of warm-up for the next piece. “The Zany Magician”, where the Albert Einstein of the Middle Ages makes his entrance, opens with a scorching heavy rock guitar riff, white-hot organ passages and an absurd, grimacing vocal that reminds me most of some of Roger Waters’ outbursts (a successful portrayal of the befuddled wizard’s psyche). Thanks to that heavy rock riff, this composition, mostly at a fast tempo, bears quite a resemblance to some of Black Sabbath’s work.
“Back Into The Present” is, in structure and melody, strangely similar to the Uriah Heep classic “Love Machine” from the album “Look At Yourself” (1971). I wouldn’t call it an outright copy, but some of the organ passages sound exactly like they were lifted from there. You can clearly hear just how strong an influence Uriah Heep had on the German rock scene of the time. The closing “The Bells Of Notre-Dame”, which marks the end of Jamie’s adventure, has a darkly tinted atmosphere with a slow tempo, a mighty organ sound and occasional melodramatic, bluesy guitar passages. The keyboard textures are further enriched by the sound of the Mellotron. In many ways, this piece already foreshadows their symphonic style, which would come to full bloom on the next album.
With “Power And The Passion”, Eloy did not (yet) create their first masterpiece of the space rock strain of progressive rock, even though it’s a very good album and certainly their best one up to that point. On this record Eloy showed for the first time signs of conceptual ambition and an intention to make an album that could hold its own against some of the output of the masters of British prog rock. That intention was reflected not only in its increasingly symphonic sonic-conceptual look but also in the distinctive logo, made in the style of Yes, which has stayed unchanged ever since and became a constant on most of their future albums. “Power And The Passion” could also be described as a kind of bridge between the early, still heavy-rock-flavored Eloy and the symphonic-conceptual golden era of the second half of the ’70s. Frank’s further ambitions took him even deeper into unknown galaxies, further away from heavy rock influences and toward symphonic-ambient expanses and sci-fi concepts, which after this album led to the breakup of that incarnation of the band and a fresh start with other musicians. The end result was their first album to bring them a wider breakthrough and one of the key albums of their career, but that’s a story for the next review.
Lineup
Frank Bornemann – vocals, guitar
Detlef Schwaar – guitar
Luitjen Janssen – bass guitar
Manfred Wieczorke – keyboards, Mellotron
Fritz Randow – drums
GUEST MUSICIAN:
Mary Davis-Smith – vocals (3)
Production
Frank Bornemann
Track list
1. Introduction (1:10)
2. Jouney Into 1358 (2:56)
3. Love Over Six Centuries (10:05)
4. Mutiny (9:07)
5. Imprisonment (3:12)
6. Daylight (2:38)
7. Thoughts Of Home (1:04)
8. The Zany Magician (2:38)
9. Back Into The Present (3:07)
10. The Bells Of Notre-Dame (6:26)
Album length: 42:23
Reissue bonus track:
11. The Bells Of Notre-Dame
