INSIDE

A far cry from both their faceless debut and the subsequent symphonic efforts for which Eloy would become known, "Inside" is actually one of their best, featuring blistering guitar leads, crunching organs, and freaked out Ian Anderson-styled vocals.

The sound is very early 1970s for sure, but, for Bornemann's first disk as band leader, it shows a good deal of maturity. The album just oozes with ominousness, and the melodies are surprisingly strong and haunting, especially on the incredible title track, which, in addition to Bornemann's "in shock" vocalizations, features horror movie style organ, a lead guitar duet, and primitively deft stereophonic effects as well as a perfectly executed tempo change. This song would be quite sufficient to recommend the album, but the rest is also very good. "Land of No Body" is something between epic , suite and extended jam, and somehow works through the variety and the support of all players. "Future City" further shows off the versatility of the band and features verses over strummed acoustic guitar until the whole band cuts loose, with Wolfgang Stöcker's bass being particularly buoyant. The final cut, "Up and Down", actually features Manfred Wieczorke on vocals and is the most, er, gentle, although that isn't the right word really. Even the spoken part works pretty well. We can certainly hear where Ramses got some of their early influence.

I find it hard to provide a point of reference for this album, since it is a unique synthesis of sounds common around that time. Names like Jethro Tull(early), Black Sabbath and Iron Butterfly come to mind, but Inside is proggier and spacier than any of those by virtue of its well calculated shifts and generally Gothic atmosphere. "Meddle" era Floyd is another point of reference. I highly recommend you explore this great album inside out.