PLANETS

WOW! That's THE Eloy album! It is among the best progressive rock albums of 1981, with Rush's "Moving pictures". The modern keyboards here are at their BEST: many pleasant organ parts take place, but the overall modern keyboards are rather atmospheric, intense, melodic and absolutely futuristic. The omnipresent melodic moog-like keyboards are the trademark of this record. Frank Bornemann's sharp electric rhythmic guitar sound is quite razor, and he also often plays short & clean guitar notes. "Planets" is more progressive than hard rock, although the omnipresent electric guitars and organ textures provide a big dose of sophisticated hard rock. The very present bass always makes a melodic rhythmic texture. The drums are very good and varied. Again, like on most of the Eloy albums, the overall rhythm speed is rather slow.

"Introduction" is a perfect futuristic keyboards track. The futuristic atmospheres on "Mysterious monolith" are AWESOME: the keyboards really steal the show here! "Queen of the night" has some very good participating orchestral arrangements and delightful & powerful female backing vocals a la Roger Waters' singers. "At the gates of dawn" is another Kitaro-esque New Age track that Eloy used to produce around 1980: the AMAZING thing on this track is the BRILLIANT fretless bass and futuristic keyboards combination. "Carried by cosmic winds" still has very participating orchestral arrangements and keyboards, futuristic atmospheres and catchy modified backing vocals; the melodic organ is particularly impressive. ALL the tracks are at least EXCELLENT!

HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!