Semaja - Hear My Cry (1980)

 

If you followed Christian rock in the mid-‘80s you might have noticed an album by the German group Semaja called No Burning Out, released to the American market by the Refuge label. That was a great little record, but this earlier Germany-only release is even better. Hear My Cry features seven lengthy cuts (five in English, two in German) in a sharply produced ‘70s progressive classic rock setting. They’ve earned a few comparisons to Santana for their Latin percussion coupled with long stretches of organ and electric guitar, faithfully expressed here on cuts like the high-energy ‘Big Noise’. Side two has a couple songs clocking in at seven-and-a-half minutes: ‘The Wind’ and the slow-churning Pink Floyd-ish ‘Jesaja 53’ (i.e., ‘Isaiah 53’). Other titles: ‘Sometimes’ (with funky bass and synthesizer), ‘Hear My Cry’, ‘Jeden Tag (Jesaja 55)’, and ‘This Life’. Unusual cover art shows a figure in a loincloth looking at a setting of bread, wine and fruit in a jungle. Back side shows a junked car and a broken doll in a burned-out apocalyptic landscape. Lead singer Markus Egger was also a member of the group Eden and has an earlier solo lp. (Ken Scott - Archivist)


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