METROMANIA

With "Metromania", Eloy coated the synthetic qualities of "Performance" with a metallic sheen in the form of heavy guitars and nasty production. The cheesiness is largely gone but this is literally cold comfort. I just want to turn up the thermostat when I listen to this album. I suppose one could argue this was the intent, but so many bands were doing much better at this than Eloy. One can only credit them for trying.

"All Life is One" is a cool vocoder track that seems to be implying that even the mechanical and digital entities are linked with carbon based biology by some overriding force, and the title cut is almost as catchy as 1980s synth-pop could be without hitting the charts. But the rest is difficult, especially the miserable "Nightriders", "Seeds Of Creation", and "The Stranger". Even the epic "Follow the Light" is of minimal interest in spite of a brief spacey section, one of the only such passages on the entire disk. This is remarkable given how important that aspect had been in the Eloy sound for well over a decade.

It is the job of good dramatic theatre to provoke discomfort and make one cringe in one's seat. If "Metromania" was presented as dramatic theatre it would achieve that goal, but this ain't theatre. After this outing Eloy collapsed yet again, and it was a welcome event.