PLANETS

What we have here is another excellent space rock voyage by the band Eloy, and it's one of the last albums in the 1976-1982 excellent albums. There is so many keyboards full of lush power with some interesting textures that give the ear that sensation of excellence in the music. This is a concept album, and it's a fantastic one. They continue with the less successful but equally as awesome Time to Turn a year or so later.

"Introduction" is a lush textural keyboard piece, no other instruments. It's pretty interesting and leads into the next awesome song. "On the Verge of Darkening Lights" is another great song, but better because the whole band is playing. I'm not too fond of the drums on this track, but the vocals by Frank are superb and the basslines from Klaus are beautifully thoughtout on this one. I love the lush dense wall of music sound you can get from this song, if you listen really loudly, of course. The guitar harmonics are very nice on this track. "Point of No Return" is very keyboard heavy, but still spacey. The vocals are pretty catchy on this track, and are excellent, some of Frank's best. Frank actually sings very well on this record, some of his best. I think that it's a little too slow for me because it's a mid- slow paced song. It's still very good, much better drumming on this track. "Mysterious Monalith" is easily the best and longest song on thist track. It has alot of their spacey elements from previous albums but has the modern sounding keyboards. The soft guitar throughout the song is excellent and gives the song atmosphere and dangerous sound. The lyrics are very good on this one to me, and the drumming very good on this track. "Queen of the Night" is a good song, not my favorite, but it's not bad. The piano and ballad like fell are very nice on this song, and Frank shows emotion in his singing that gives you the chills at times. The lyrics work very well on this one. "At the Gates of Dawn" is another spacey track, with the piano going from the last song, and a new guitar riff seeping in you know it's just waitng to be good. There aren't too much drums, but you can somewhat faintly some percussion instruments in the background. This one of the more intense sounding instruments I have heard. "Sphinx" is another fairly good track, very nice keyboards and guitar. The rhythm section on this song is very nice, working well with all of the other instruments. Frank sings very well on this track. "Carried by Cosmic Winds" is a nice closer, and it kind of keeps you wondering, what will be on the next album? It has a nice keyboard intro, it's very catching to the ear. The lyrics are very nice on this one, and so are the vocals on this track.

Overall, there are only a few blemish's with this recording, but it's near perfection to me. The songs are very well put together for their time, and it's the second to last album in the 1980's model of Eloy to actually have a good, well-thoughout concept in mind, and it's one of the last masterpieces in the Eloy catalouge (I shouldn't say that, there are few more that are still on par with this one). Still, I have to give this album a 5 star because it's needed in your collection, so is the next album