WINGS OF VISION

"Wings of vision" is a compilation: it contains one track from the "Ocean", "Dawn", "Silent cries and mighty echoes" albums, and 3 tracks from the "Colours" album; the excellent choice of the tracks makes all them at least very good. The progressive "Poseidon's Creation", from Ocean, is absolutely fantastic: it contains dirty & powerful organ, aggressive & loud guitars, modern keyboards, quite elaborated drums and catchy lead & backing vocals. The track "Wings of Vision" seems to not appear on any Eloy's studio album: it is a very accessible and catchy track: the keyboards are really expressive, consisting in melodic moogs, piano and VERY intensely floating keyboards full of effect. "The Sun-Song", from "Dawn", has a New Age style combined with simple symphonic arrangements, and it can be compared to a Kitaro track. "Pilot To Paradise", from "Silent cries and mighty echoes", has omnipresent loud & clean guitar solos, intense organ textures and rather aggressive rhythmic guitar. "Illuminations" and "Child Migration", from "Colours", have impressive miscellaneous guitar sounds, and the keyboards sound rather modern, although they less steal the show than on the "Planets" album. "Silhouette" may remind you "Another brick in the wall" by Pink Floyd.

Rating: 4.5 stars

This compilation was released only in Canada and highlights the 1976-1980 period of Eloy, from "Dawn" thru "Colours", encompassing most of their best albums and generally including stronger and representative selections from that period. Mine is a cassette copy and I'm quite certain this has never been and will never be released on CD.

The cover is identical to that of "Ocean", and the opening track is the same as on the aforementioned album, the classic symphonic space piece "Poseidon's Creation". The representative from "Dawn" is the imposing yet dreamy "The Sun Song", while "Silent Cries" is amply acquitted by "Pilot to Paradise", perhaps the most "oceanic" of that album's tracklist. With "Colours" having been the most recent album at the time, and being comprised of Alan Parsons styled shorter pieces, Harvest decided to focus side 2 on this ostensibly more accessible music. The best of these is the moody and majestic "Child Migration", but "Illuminations" shows Eloy in their element as well, a hard rocking yet keyboard dominated tune. Only "Wings of Vision" had never appeared on an Eloy album up to that time, and it's the most pop oriented, like "Duke" era GENESIS, pleasant enough if a bit surprising coming from ELOY.

While this compendium didn't do much for Eloy's prospects in Canada, it provides an excellent introduction to the band, and if you happen to spot it in a dusty bin in your favourite haunt in Kapuskasing, Ontario, do pick it up before it flies off.