ELOY

Fabulous album, and among the best Eloy albums I know. Produced by Conrad Plank, Eloy enters the music world with a classic rock attitude, combined with Floydian space atmospherics. The music sounds a bit like Uriah Heep, with some Cream influences. Very good instrumentalists and great songs. Eloy are often compared to Pink Floyd, but on this album that influence is not as apparent as on later releases.

1. Today (5:56) A very Uriah Heep like rock song, especially in the vocals, starting with some spacy guitar extravaganza, soon to take off into great classic rock. the nanananna vocal section is almost a direct rip off from Uriah Heep, but original enough to not get upset about it. Great guitar solo from Frank Bornemann. 2. Something yellow (8:15) Starting with fabulous keyboards, then a July Morning Uriah Heep like guitar takes the song to a more classic rock format, the end of the song is spacy blues with some great guitars.

3. Eloy (6:15) A Jan Akkerman (Hocus Pocus) type lead guitar, creates the back-bone for this song, again the vocals remind me of UH, great song, with a great soft drum solo in the middle, after which the music returns to good spacy classic rock. 4. Song of a paranoid soldier (4:50) Hey, they can play Cream type music also, maybe they should disquise their influences better, but a nice song all together, not brilliant though.

5. Voice of revolution (3:07) Again some Cream influences, mainly in the vocals and the drum/bass play, good song. 6. Isle of sun (6:03) A soft ballad, with great vocals, but mainly carried by the fabulous and compelling keyboards, very very good. 7. Dillus roady (6:32) Blues rock at most, again fairly reminiscent of Uriah Heep, especially the organ/bass/drum interplay, with the high edgy guitar on top of it. Great song.

In this review i've often compared Eloy to Uriah heep, but I just remembered this album was released in 1970. Anyway this is a great album, and a good listen to all who enjoy the softer Uriah Heep songs (July Morning, Salisbury). After this they became more space-rock oriented. I liked their debut album very much, and I recommend you give the band a listen, when you get the chance.

Not a masterpiece, but very good indeed.