Modrigue ELOY's self-titled debut album is not representative of the band. After winning a musical contest, the germans recorded a single in 1970, before releasing their first opus the next year. Overwhelmed by theirs british hard rock influences, they have not developed their typical fantasy space-rock style yet. Despite the nationality, the compositions cannot be assimilated to Krautrock either, but rather to early hard/heavy rock, with very discrete progressive elements. Furthermore, Erich Schriever's singing tries to sound like Ian Gillian. At this time, Frank Bornemann was only guitarist, and this record does not display his talents yet.

The opener "Today" is an enjoyable hard rock tune resembling DEEP PURPLE's "Hush" cover. The slightly progressive "Something Yellow" opens with a BLACK SABBATH-ian riff, and features more or less interesting variations. The title track is quite pleasant and clearly confirms the band's British influences. "Song Of A Paranoid Soldier" and "Voice Of Revolution" are also correct early heavy rock tunes, while the organ-driven "Isle Of Sun" is softer. The ending track, "Dillus Roady" is the weakest, rather useless and uninspired.

Arriving a few years too late (which will be a recurrent thing for ELOY), the record does not take many risks and sounds like a second-zone DEEP PURPLE. The progressive incursions are still shy and the musical transitions, abrupt and not very mastered. However, the songs themselves aren't bad. Definitely not the album to start with and lacking personality, "Eloy" is nonetheless an enjoyable listen for early hard / psychedelic rock fans.

Warthur The first Eloy album sees them picking up a lot of cues from Black Sabbath - this much is obvious from opening track Today, which includes a competently imitated proto-doom drum and guitar attack after the spacey introduction - but it is possible to over-emphasise the influence of Ozzy and crew on Eloy at this point in time. Even when Rick Wakeman made a guest appearance on Sabbath Bloody Sabbath, the Sabs never quite got a full Keith Emerson- esque keyboard assault like Wieczorke provides on many of the tracks here. The album is competently performed, but rather directionless - the band seem to be trying out whatever musical ideas come to mind in the process of working out exactly what they want to do, something they should probably have decided before entering the studio. Can't give this one much more than two stars, but it's a decent enough start to their career and if you especially enjoy Eloy and are curious about their beginnings it's probably worth a listen.

Unitron Eloy-Eloy

'Eloy' is the self-titled debut studio album by hard rock/space rock band Eloy. Eloy is most known for their combination of hard rock/heavy metal and space rock on their 'Inside' and later albums, however with their debut release there isn't any space rock to be found here. This is a bluesy hard rock/heavy metal album not all that dissimilar to what they would make later, except without the space rock sounds.

Like previously stated, this is primarily bluesy hard rock/heavy metal with room for experimentation. The first comparison that comes to mind is Rush's self-titled debut. Both debuts are criticized, because a lot of fans of both bands find them to lack in comparisons to the albums they made during their height. However, when you stop comparing you really see just how great these albums are. The song 'Eloy' has some great heavy riffing, and a very beautiful chorus with the lyrics 'In a land of freedom'. After the beginning is where the experimental instrumentation comes in with an avant-garde drum solo during the bridge. I love how towards the end of the solo, you can hear the bass guitar subtly in the background. The 8-minute 'Something Yellow' has an awesome menacing guitar solo that foreshadows the amazing menacing solos on albums like 'Floating'.

Speaking of menacing, my favorite song from the album, and one of my favorite Eloy songs is 'Song of a Paranoid Soldier'. This song has all I want in early heavy metal, having anti-war lyrics, menacing Black Sabbath-esque diminished chords, and an amazing vocal performance that matches with the music. Another one of my favorites is the Deep Purple-esque stomp of 'Dillus Roady', with the marching stomp of the organ and guitar. Not to mention the great guitar soloing in the song. If you get the remaster with bonus tracks, you get a few short but sweet songs like the driving opening riffs of 'Walk Alone'.

Overall, for anyone wanting some hard rocking proto-metal, you can't go wrong here or with any of Eloy's early albums for that matter. Highly recommended for fans of Deep Purple, Uriah Heep, and other bands of that ilk. Hope you found this review helpful.

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