By 1981, Eloy's sound could be only be considered BIG. Wide open expansive music with fantastic bass and synthesizer chords. They'd been more or less working towards this album since 1976's Dawn, and had perfected the formula by the time of Planets. While the earlier Eloy albums such as Inside possessed both tricky time shifts and long solos, Planets is none of those things. But it's not plodding like Pink Floyd either. Overall a very pleasing music, strong on melody, and has a good groove. The type of sounds that you could draw new fans in given its lack of dissonance or avant garde techniques.
Ownership: LP: 1982 Heavy Metal Worldwide (UK). Textured single sleeve with lyric inner. Fortunately without the cut corner like the Discogs version shown here. For whatever reason, even though I owned most of the Eloy albums by the time I left college in 1987, I never picked up Planets. In fact, I don't recall seeing it. I had the others on the label by then: Time To Turn, Performance, and Metromania. It wasn't until 2014 that I finally purchased the LP (and heard for the first time) - but it was the original German gatefold release with a different cover. I wanted the Rodney Matthews version and finally acquired this copy online in 2020. I had both up until yesterday, thinking the German copy was in better condition (the cover certainly was) - but no, it turns out this was the better vinyl. So that one is now in the record show box. The HMW releases feature beautiful fantasy covers. The name of the label doesn't match the music of Eloy - not even close - and I'm sure that created confusion for fans of both. The label only lasted 5 years and their roster was a mix of metal and prog.
2//14; 9/10/22 (new entry)
No comments:
Post a Comment