VISIONARY

Eloy´s comeback after more than a decade has brought me a lot of mixed feelings when I first heard it and ot still does after several spinnings. Visionary sounds like a sum of everything Eloy has done in their career (but more specificly around the Planets/Time To Turn period). Which means that nothing new came with this CD. It is mostly a reharsh of their former self. So I guess I should be glad with that since I was never really charmed by their more eletronic work in albums like Ra and Destination.

The bad side of Visionary is that of the new songs: too much vocals (not one of their best aspects in any record) and not really convincing themes and arrangements. The playing is as fine as ever (great bass lines by Klaus-Peter Matziol, good guitar parts, very good vintage sounding keyboards). The main problem seems to be a lacking of boldiness like they did on Ocean 2 and The Tides Return Forever, where they again plowed on familiar ground but still delivered strong and relevant material. On Visionary the tunes are ok, but you have the strong impression you heard it all before and done in a better way: The Challenge for instance, is almost Time To Turn with another set of lyrics.

Conclusion: Visionary is a pleasant album, if you´re not a too demanding fan. Rating: somewhere 2,5 and 3 stars. Good, but not essential in any way.