Eloy Discovery Zone

Eloy made spacey and mythological conceptalbums like Planets/Time to Turn, Ocean/Ocean II, Dawn etc.

But this is much more in the vein of War of the Worlds. There's no spacey concept to this. It's a historical story and should be considered as such.

As a rockopera it works quite right. I don't really like rockoperas though, I'm more a fan of the spacey concepts of Eloy.

But the music on the new album is very good, the production is really warm and up front. The vocals of Frank are really nice, if you compare it to his singer colleagues of the same age (Ian Anderson, Fish, Justin Hayward, John Lees, etc.)

There are great synthsolos, guitarsolos, lots of dynamics, great bassparts, nice timesignatures changes, very tight drumming, etc.

So on the surface there is really nothing wrong to this album.

By the way: this is not the first time, that Eloy uses narrative parts (Atlantis' Agony has spoken parts, and on Ra there's a female voice that narrates).

Also the parts that are recycled are from the same concept; Jeanne d'Arc was already the subject of two songs; on Destination and on Tides Return Forever, so in that light, it's more of a reprise.

Savatage did exactly the same when the reprised When the Crowds are Gone on Streets.

Also Mike Oldfield, Dream Theatre, Rush, Saga and millions more recycled old ideas and concepts in new albums, or divided concepts into several albums.

So, I don't really understand that that would be a good argument for a 1* rating. A 1* rating would mean that absolutely nothing on this album resembles progrock or Eloy. And that's so far from the truth.

I don't know if this album is a 5* album, because I'd rather hear a Ocean III, I really am a sucker for spacey themes. But this albums is at least a 4* star album. The production and calmness of the songs is something that a lot of bands can take an example from.

Eloy manages to pull the listener into the story, and that's really something.

I'm going for it right now! 

Barbu wrote: Another listen to Reincarnation on Stage last night. Wow! One of the best live album I own, every Eloy fan need that one. 5 very bright stars!

It really is excellent- on vinyl its spread across 6 sides and I just listen from start to finish and there's no filler at all IMO; superbly played, sang, recorded and produced. There are very, very few live lps ive ever listened to in entirety so many times in a row. On the strength of that lp I am very keen to see them again if they play in Europe!

fully agree