INSIDE

The second album of Germans Eloy comes a couple of years after the debut. Even if they try to sound more spacey, they are still sticking on some hard rock standards, so even if their first attempt to make a side long suite wants to be spacey, like they are trying to get inspiration from Pink Floyd and Krautrock, the influence of URIAH HEEP is very heavy. There's also a part in the second half of the suite "Land Of No Body" that seems taken from Deep Purple's Child in Time (that was taken from "Bombay Calling" of the band "It's a Beautiful Day"). The middle part, the spacey one with the organ in foreground is not bad, but is quite far from reaching its objective.

The B-Side is opened by "Inside". The influence of Uriah Heep appears huge also on this track. Frank Bornemann is not a bad vocalist, but his strong German accent doesn't sound very well when singing in English. I have always thought that they should have been used their home language, instead. The guitar solo on the "accelerated" part is almost standardised. Not a bad song, but it doesn't contain anything particularily interesting.

Surprise...."Future City" seems a JETHRO TULL song. Also the voice is mimic of Ian Anderson. It's not a bad song, but this is the defect of this band. They are skilled musicians but they hardly make anything original. The song seems taken from Aqualung, but the instrumental part in the middle is not so "Inspired by".

"Up And Down" is the most Floydian song of the album. This is the way that the Eloy will follow in the next albums.

This album is not bad, but as I have written there's nothing original, so it's not the album that I would suggest to who wants to approach this band. It's a little below the debut even if promising of further goods (easy to say retrospectively).

2 stars - good for fans