PLANETS

While many classic Prog bands from the 70's seemed to be in a downward spiral in the early 80's, Eloy were instead on the verge of the peak of their career. The previous Colours had been an improvement over the somewhat lazy Silent Cries And Mighty Echoes and the present album is again an improvement over Colours. The positive trend would continue even further with the next album. Planets was the first of two thematically connected albums that apparently were originally intended to form a double album. However, the band was persuaded by the record company to make two separate albums instead, and that was probably for the better in the end. The other of these two connected albums, Time To Turn, was released the year after this one and is in my opinion Eloy's best album bar none. But already here you can notice how the band had matured over the years and I would say that Planets was their best efforts up till that point. Ever since the beginning, they progressively became better songwriters, they were advancing their melodic sensibilities and developing a stronger musical identity of their own and Frank Bornemann's sometimes annoying German accent was gradually being tamed and moderated even if never fully overcome.

Both Planets and Time To Turn are rather keyboard dominated albums with strong compositions and Symphonic Prog leanings as opposed to just Psychedelic ones, but Planets is perhaps even more keyboard dominated with the guitars often being relegated to the background. This makes the album stand out from previous Eloy albums and I think they achieved a better balance between guitars and keyboards on Time To Turn. The tunes are generally very enjoyable and the album flows very well from start to finish. It is not very easy to pick out favourite tracks as the album works best as an organic whole.

Recommended, especially in addition to the more powerful Time To Turn

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