In most issues of Prog, Norwegian bands are healthily represented, and here’s another one well worth keeping in your sights.
Electric Eye hail from the town of Bergen, and their stock-in-trade is psychedelic space rock. Across the seven tracks here the overriding touchstone is vintage Hawkwind, exemplified by opening track. Silent By The River sees the band lock into a rolling groove, locked down by the bass and drums as whooshing synths and cosmic guitars provide the foreground. Add touches of mid-period Pink Floyd and some washes of Steve Hillage and you have the recipe for two-thirds of this 40-minute album. There are a few detours from the cosmic path: the chugging Mercury Rise comes across like a garage band covering T Rex, and Never Fade Away possesses (as its knowing title implies) an early Stones feel, but overall Different Sun is much more about the groove and the trip than the verses and choruses. The closing track takes the playfully ironic name Part One, and it’s an ambient sign-off to restore cosmic calm after the intergalactic storm, which it does well. If you like your prog spacey then give these guys a try. Their long strange trip’s well worth the taking.
