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Eloy - Colours CD (album) cover

COLOURS

Eloy

 

Psychedelic/Space Rock

3.70 | 501 ratings

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octopus-4
Special Collaborator
RIO/Avant/Zeuhl,Neo & Post/Math Teams
4 stars It's perhaps because of the comments received by their previous album but more likely because of the huge change in the lineup, specially the new keyboardist Hannes Folberth, but after the Uriah Heep, also the Pink Floyd influence is disappeared.

If I have to say who is the influencer on this first Eloy's album of the 80s, I would say Wakeman and Froese as the biggest change in the sound comes from the keyboard. In this change what appears clearly is that what has made the Eloy's sound distinctive is Frank Bornemann's guitar (in the good) and Frank Bornemann's voice (in the bad).

The album is opened by a Krautrock-styled track, mainly driven by keyboards and featuring the ethereal voices of two girls called "Edna und Sabine". A good intro a bit misleading. In fact this is the only track of its kind. Since the following track it's more rock. "Illuminations" contains some of the good things we've listened to on Ocean and going ahead "Giant" is another very good song with a huge presence of keyboards and a bit reminding to the YES. However this is not a so big influence as Pink Floyd on Silent Cries or Uriah Heep on the debut, also because Bornemann can't sing like Jon Anderson. "Impressions" is quite similar.

"Child Migration" can be considered a classical Eloy song. No many influences here, it starts similar to Atlantis' Agony but turns quickly to rock with a nice guitar riff. It already sounds a bit 80s in the instrumental uptime part in the middle of the song.

"Gallery" starts with a 4/4 tempo, highly influenced by "Disco", but we are close in time to "The Wall" and "90125", two albums who have payed a bigger tribute to the 80s. This song is unusually hard for Eloy.

That's why we need some piano. "Silhouette" starts more symphonic than everything else on this album, but after the intro it sounds a bit like Alan Parsons Project. Not so badly as Camel did with A Single Factor. What I'm trying to say is that this album has less weaknesses than some of its most famous contemporaries even if often sounding so 80s.

The guitar harping of the closer with the melody carried on by the keyboard makes me think to Camel's "Nimrodel". And this is surely not a bad thing. In addition, the whistled sound of the keyboard has a "spaghetti-western" mood, like some famous Morricone's soundtracks. It's a pity that it fades out without being developed better.

I think this album represents a little step forward respect to its predecessor. 3.5 stars, really, but I have rounded down Silent Cries, so I want to be more generous this time.

octopus-4 | 4/5 |

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