Eloy - 1980 - Colours

Eloy

1980

Colours

01. Horizons (3:20)
02. Illuminations (6:19)
03. Giant (6:05)
04. Impressions (3:06)
05. Child Migration (7:23)
06. Gallery (3:08)
07. Silhouette (6:57)
08. Sunset (3:15)

Bonus tracks on 2005 EMI remaster:
09. Wings of Vision (single) (4:14)
10. Silhouette (single edit) (3:30)

Frank Bornemann / lead vocals, acoustic & electric guitars, co-producer
Hannes Arkona / acoustic & electric guitars
Hannes Folberth / keyboards
Klaus-Peter Matziol / bass, backing vocals
Jim McGillivray / drums, percussion

With:
Edna & Sabine / lead vocals (1)

Colours was my first taste of Eloy's "new wave" period and I must say I quite like it. The overall change towards a more modern sound is quite obvious, even if the individual elements have just been tweaked slightly – the main changes being the prominent 80s synths with the guitars taking a slight backseat. The band seems to be heavily influenced by Alan Parsons but, as I mentioned elsewhere, fortunately Eloy stayed mostly true to their prog roots and never strayed too much into synth pop and definitely not adult contemporary territory. The other main influence I hear is Camel with Eloy taking their synth heavy prog into even more poppy territory.

Colours is in many ways very easy to enjoy and is less challenging than what came before. The smooth and heavily produced keyboards greatly offset the typically driving Eloy guitars making it sound like "easy listening" prog at times. Not that "challenging" was necessarily a good thing with Eloy, as it sometimes meant directionless noodling and unstructured instrumentals. There is very little of that here.

The album is constructed with half of the eight tracks in the 6-7 minute region and the other half in the 2-3 minute region. For the lengthier tracks 'Illuminations', 'Child Migration' and 'Silhouette' seem to the marked as the extended prog epics. 'Illuminations' takes us back to 'Poseidon's Creation' from Ocean with a very similar sounding riff. 'Poseidon's Creation' was one of a kind but 'Illuminations' is almost as good with all sorts of cool keyboard embellishment greatly accenting the guitar drive of the track. 'Child Migration' starts with synths taken direct from Camel's Moodmadness. I really like the sound of that album so I'm not complaining. This is then merged with the Alan Parsons synths of 'Horizons' and the typically driving guitars of Eloy to create a really cool track.

Compared to these 'Silhouette' is quite disappointing sounding at times like synth funk or even synth disco (that bassline has more than a passing resemblance to 'Billie Jean'). Just when the tracks appears to be an overlong, repetitive bore the band decide to insert a really catchy pop hook in the middle of nowhere ("Roots understanding seeking silently / Branches searching in serenity") which almost saves the track. Of the lengthy tracks 'Giant' is the least ambitious. It is a nice catchy rocker with a poppy version of that Chris Squire funky bass line that the band mastered on Ocean and synths taken straight from Pink Floyd's 'Welcome to the Machine' (albeit played faster and hence providing less atmosphere) and a guitar solo that sounds a bit like sped up version of a classic David Gilmour solo.

As for the shorter tracks, two are instrumentals that bookend the album. The opening 'Horizons' is clear Alan Parsons with a catchy repetitive synth groove accompanied by female choir vocals. Very nice even if the synths sound somewhat dated. The closing 'Sunset' is actually quite pretty with a nice moog melody played over calming acoustic chords. The two shorter tracks with vocals are bordering on throwaways. I'm really ambivalent and puzzled about 'Gallery'. The strange and annoying vocals and frilly, almost disco synths, are cancelled out by the fairly catchy melody and short snappy guitar. 'Impressions' is better but doesn't really present anything that isn't done better on tracks like 'Illuminations', 'Giant' and 'Child Migration'. Well I suppose it has a flute solo and, while passable, it barely qualifies as exciting.

So overall Colours is a very nice album and very easy to enjoy. Of course it's a bit cheesy and its hardly going to be considered one of the best prog albums going around. But dammit, I'm just such a softy for all those easy listening synths. If it wasn't for the misstep of 'Silhouette' I would even consider it up there with Eloy's best albums. As it stands though, it will have to settle for being just on that next level down.