COLOURS

A transitional album of sorts.It was to be expect, though. It was the early 80´s and the ever changing tides of musical taste were putting pressure: the days of long compositions and elaborated arrangements were gone by then. And so was the fine line up that made some of Eloys best records ever. Drummer Jurgen Rosenthal and keyboardist Detlev Schmidtchen were gone, only bassist Klaus-Peter Matziol remaining. They asked guitarist Hannes Arkona tojoin and also brought english born drummer Jim McGillivray to replace Rosenthal both as a musician and as lyricist for the new songs.

Colours is a good album, and I think, considering the pressures of the moment (no to count the recording company), it is even pretty bold, being doubtless a progressive album, although the tunes are shorter and simpler than before, with a nod or two to new influences like The Alan parsons Project. It is not as powerful as a dedicated fan at the perod should expect, but I think it was quite good for the time, since the group remained faithful to their style, only eliminating some excesses (as it was then labelled anything progressive). The two guitar front gave a more rocking sound and the keyboards are definitely less prominent here, even though they are still very strong. They even included an (uncredited) flute solo on Impressions, something definitely not cool for 1980. I really like Child Migration, which is the best track here, but none is bad. In fact I found I liked Colours a lot, and the stuff has aged well after all this time, although it is slightly inferior to the ones that preceded it and also to the others that followed. This line up would rise to rival the "classic" one and would produce some of Eloys best in the form of Planets and Time To Turn.

Rating: 3,5 stars.