FLOATING

Very strangely, the opening track reminds me the early..."Santana" (no, I'm not drunk). Sound of the keyboards are as furious as those of Gregg Rollie and the percussions are not far from "Jingo". A good but surprising number I must say.

"Eloy" gets back to a more classical psychedelic style with the long "The Light From Deep Darkness". The band is trying to redo "Land Of Nobody" from their previous album but IMO, just fails short. Again, the influence of early "Floyd" is dominant. Just listen to "Let There Be More Light" (from "ASOS"). This cannot be a coincidence, can it? The spacey moments are my preferred ones and, as usual Manfred Wieczorke is great on the organ. It is the highlight of this album even if the second part is very close to a jamming session.

Unfortunately, the next two songs ("Castle In The Air" and "Plastic Girl") won't be on par. Too monotonuous, repetitive and flat. But thanks to "Madhouse" the good level of this album is secured. Superb and wild guitar in this powerful number. The second best. Totally disjointed.

There are three live bonus track of which one unedited (at least at album level). "Flying High" is a pure hard-rock tune : great rhythm and huge guitar work. The rhythmic section is incredible. The highlight of this live part is "Future City" from their second album "Inside". A psychedelic / hard-rock combo. Very pleasant. The version of "Castle in the Air" is also more interesting in this live rendition. Energetic to say the least.

All in all, it is a good album; not yet grandiose but "Eloy" will get there. Three stars because the live tracks add a certain flavour to the original work.