Trollheart

Continuing on through the Five Decades of Prog, we’re back at the eighties.

Album title: Planets
Artist: Eloy
Nationality: German
Year: 1981
Chronology: 9
The Trollheart Factor: 3
Eloy have been around for a lot longer than I originally gave them credit for. When I heard my first Eloy album, 1983’s Performance, I was quite disappointed because it didn’t sound old-school prog to me. It was more modern, perhaps cutting-edge, at least to me at the time, who had at that time come up on Genesis and Rush and Marillion and Twelfth Night. But this German outfit in fact got together just as the world bade farewell to the “swinging sixties”, and by the time I blundered upon them the album I so snippily disparaged as “not really prog” was, and is, their eleventh, they having been in existence at that point for thirteen years. Shows what I knew!

Well thank you Spotify! Once again, you’re useless to me here. I don’t know why I bother. Oh, there are Eloy albums there all right, but not this one. Fortunately, I have them all anyway, so let’s just select it from my hard drive and hit play. Incidentally, you might be thinking, as I was, this album may be a tribute to Holst’s classical masterpiece, but it isn’t. There’s a short, just shy of two-minutes introduction called, um, “Introduction”, spacey synthy sounds and feedback guitar, then we begin proper with “On the Verge of Darkening Lights”, an uptempo guitar from Hannes Arkona meshing with syrupy synth from Hannes Folberth and the distinctive vocal of Frank Bornemann (who will never be able to deny he’s German with that accent) takes us on a magical journey of exploration. Some very upfront bass from Klaus-Peter Matziol , and the song ends very low-key, sliding directly into “Point of No Return”, which swaggers along on sharp guitar and swirling synth, a much slower beat on this one.

There’s a nice semi-early Genesis feel to “Mysterious Monolith”, some sweet acoustic guitar allied to soft electric, a gentler vocal from Bornemann and lush synth from Folberth too. Matziol certainly makes his presence felt, while Folberth gives a sort of rendition of the riff “The Logical Song” on the keys. The problem though, for me, persists with Eloy, in that while I enjoy what I hear, generally, I really don’t remember any of the songs, even during the album. They don’t make the kind of impression on me they probably should, which is one reason why I don’t and haven’t listened to much from this band. Even that album I mentioned at the start, Performance, I can only remember two tracks from. Nothing here is sinking in and as each track ends I immediately forget it. That might just be me; maybe they’re not holding my attention, but even if so, it makes it hard to get a sense of what they’re about.

“Queen of the Night” comes in very gradually and seems, rather oddly, to be cut lower than the rest of the album. I assume it’s the ballad, led in by soft piano and a vocal that’s next to inaudible for about a minute, then powerful strings swell behind it and it gets a little louder and more coherent. Oh, and suddenly it kicks up on punchy guitar riffs and well, what do you know? It’s not a ballad at all. That was a surprise. Female backing vocals, not credited, certainly add something to this song, as does the string section. Some of the passages take a distinct ELO turn (Eloy without the last letter?) aided by some fine work on the guitar. Nice little relaxing instrumental then in “At the Gates of Dawn” before we meet the “Sphinx”, where everything ramps up again and in fact I’m reminded somewhat of that later album in the rising, blasting keyboard arpeggios, and sadly, in being reminded of their 1983 effort I’m back to not caring. There’s a good bass section here leading in sprinkly keyboards around halfway through the track, Bornemann’s vocal riding over the musical backdrop. Everything drops away then to just drumbeats in the fifth minute, before those stabbing, sliding synths power back in.

That leaves us to be “Carried by Cosmic Winds”, with a very Jean-Michel Jarre feeling to it, winds hissing and waves crashing, soft guitar climbing its way almost unobtrusively into the melody attended by howling synth. The vocal comes in low and soft too, then Hammond breaks into the tune, carrying it along with vocoder work, Eloy being another band who use this quite extensively. The strings section comes in here just at the end too, providing a pretty sumptuous backdrop to the close of the album.

Track Listing

1. Introduction (6)
2. On The Verge Of Darkening Lights (6)
3. Point Of No Return (6)
4. Mysterious Monolith (6)
5. Queen Of The Night (8)
6. At The Gates Of Dawn (8)
7. Sphinx (6)
8. Carried By Cosmic Winds (7)

I’m sure this is a great album, and all Eloy fans love it, but I just can’t get up the enthusiasm to say it does anything for me. It doesn’t: it’s over and I have got little from it, nor do I expect to be returning to it anytime soon, if at all. I guess my sense of meh with Eloy continues for now. Maybe they have an album, or albums, that will change my mind, but this ain’t one of them.

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Trollheart: Signature-free since April 2018