ELOY LIVE

After the success of "Dawn" and especially "Ocean", ELOY is now popular enough to tour in Germany and to release their first live album, simply titled "Live". The track-list consists mainly of tracks of the two aforementioned opuses, with one song from "Inside" and "Power and the Passion". There is no material from their debut, as it is not really ELOY yet, and from "Floating", as its style has always been a bit apart in the Germans' discography. In fact, "Ocean" was initially entirely performed, but, due to technical issues, "Decay Of Logos" had to be removed from the recording.

The live renditions are overall faithful to their studio versions. Some passages have been made more theatrical and features spoken sentences in German. As there were no orchestra, the tracks from "Dawn" are lighter, but nonetheless very nice, even if I'm not a big fan of "The Sun Song" and "Gliding Into Light And Knowledge". "The Dance In Doubt And Fear" is in fact followed by "Lost!? (Introduction)". A powerful moment with a pretty guitar solo in the beginning. As they were not originally played by the "golden" line-up, "Mutiny" and "Inside"'s reinterpretation are quite bombastic. "Atlantis' Agony" has been stretched to 21 minutes. This rather useless and lengthy extension concerns the ambient spacey introduction and does neither really bring something interesting nor enhance the source composition.

For Bornemann and co.'s lovers, there will be no big surprises here, unlike GROBSCHNITT's "Solar Music Live" for example. However, this release is still very good, proving that the band could deliver a robust performance. At this period, during the punk explosion, there were not many live albums from progressive rock bands at this period.

Recommended to ELOY and space rock fans.