COLOURS

After keeping the same line-up for their three previous albums, the most representative of their discography, Eloy shuffles again and renews part of their line-up (surviving the change its leader Frank Bornemann and bass player Klaus-Peter Matziol) facing the beginning of the complicated decade of the 80's. The band tries not to get stuck in the conceptual themes and extensive developments typical of the progressive genre that had already lost much of its charm by the end of the 70's, and seeks to adapt to the stylistic models that began to dominate the musical panorama of that time, with shorter and less complex melodies, but still trying to respect its rock and space essence. And the result was "Colours" (1980), the band's eighth album.

The polychromatic work opens the game with a simplified approach, and although some pieces fail to convince completely, such as the repetitive and trivial "Horizons", from which perhaps its celestial female chorus could be rescued, or the urgent and lilting "Gallery", which suffers from an excess of lightness, there are a good handful of songs that come out of the challenge well and vindicate the most cosmic and structured Eloy, like the atmospheric "Illuminations" and Bornemann's hard rock riffs interacting with the keyboards of newcomer Hannes Folberth, the hypnotic mid-tempos of "Giant" and "Impressions" with their interesting flute contributions, or the infallible Floydian reference in "Child Migration" and its guitar riffs borrowed from 'Pigs (Three Different Ones)' in one of the best tracks on the album.

And after the Parsonian vibe that emanates from the relaxed and shifting "Silhouette" with the harmonic and versatile wall of sound that Matziol's bass and the percussion of the also newly incorporated Jim McGillivray generate for the guitars and keyboards, the twilight melancholy of "Sunset", a beautiful and peaceful instrumental dominated by Bornemann's guitar arpeggios and Folberth's keyboards, brings "Colours" to an end, and marks the beginning of the German band's eighties period.

3.5 stars