THE TIDES RETURN FOREVER

I have a strange chronological relationship with this band. Most fans/reviewers started the bands discography in the seventies, loved the band a lot for what they achieved in those days and from some point in the eighties started to dislike them for their change of sound and style and uttered that in the ratings. And also the nineties releases were less appreciated than the early work though recovery was noticeable. With me it all went differently, my first purchase was the 1976-79 compilation and after that the late eighties and nineties albums, that was all. More recently I also bought a few seventies albums so I more or less do things the reverse way. But now here's my point: because my introduction was actually in the latter part of their career I never really disliked those albums because I didn't know better. To me this was Eloy and what they did early on was for some other time to discover. So that explains my fairly merciful ratings for Destination and Ra (the albums I'm talking about). I thought they were good albums and their two nineties releases were even excellent albums to me. Today I know better, I know their peek was in the seventies and it changed my perception about the above mentioned albums. I still like them and I also still like this release, The Tides return forever as well as Ocean 2, the Answer which I will review after this.

I chose to do the explenation above because it's of importance for my feel about Eloy. I'm not a huge fan but I like them a lot. I will give short descriptions of the songs on this album and what they mean to me.

1. The Day of Crimson Skies. Now I hear this one more time I detect a lot of similarity with the style of the Destination album, not that strange since that is the predecessor of this album. Not an outstanding song but technically good. 3,25*

2. Fatal Illusions. With this second track we enter a slightly innovated Eloy because I can't imagine this one as a Destination track. Their spacy sound of the seventies seems to return much more here and it speaks for itself that also I love that Eloy more in the end than the more commercial sound of the late eighties/early nineties. This is a great song and composition, I always loved this one. 4,25*

3. Childhood memories. Where quality and impact is concerned this is of the same level as the opening song. A bit of a slow unimpressive song, probably the least of the album. At the end some nice keys. 3*

4. Generation of Innocence. This one is much more energetic but like the opener a bit more in the Destination style again. A pretty good song but not great. Some energetic keyboardplaying. 3,5*

5. The Tides return forever. Now we're talking again ! This is the fantastic title track I was always impressed by enormously. A majestic composition with some outstanding (female) vocals as highlight. Bit soft and slow in the beginning but notice the build up ! 4,5*

6. The Last in Line. Again some hints to the predecessing album. Somehow it must have been hard for them to say goodbye to that style. Could also be a few of the songs on this album were written in 1992/93 and the newer styled songs later on. But that's just a guess. 3* for this.

7. Company of Angels. Despite my huge praise over the title track, this is the absolute highlight. Mindblowing song also and several steps forward compared to the Destination standard. Talking about majestic, here's another. 4,75*

The ultimate score is somewhere between 3 and 4 stars. My feeling says 4 so that's what it will be and the reason is the big step forward they made compared to their two previous albums. Those two were good but this is a lot better, a true revival and that deserves a reward I think.