Unitron Among the many bands that made the transition from the 70's to the 80's, Eloy was one of the best at adapting to the new decade. They perfected their space rock/heavy metal hybrid in the 70's with the trilogy of Inside, Floating, and Power and the Passion, and with Performance they perfect a new sound appropriate for the decade.

Performance, as well as the equally excellent follow up Metromania, are a bit hard to pin down as far as genre goes, but they're so wonderfully 80's in the best ways. It's basically a combination of multiple 80's sounds, from new wave to the new wave of heavy metal, it's made to fit Eloy's own mold. Opener In Disguise is a fantastic piece of 80's new wave-tinged hard rock, and is what should've actually been Top Gun's theme song. Shadow and Light has some great metal riffing, Mirador is an instrumental dominated by bass and synth interplay, Heartbeat and Fools are more fantastic 80's new wave rock, and A Broken Frame closes out the album in a majestic fashion.

The best part about this album is just how electrified and energetic the band sounds. Even a song like Surrender which is just drenched in 80's cheese, turns into a total bop with how much these guys are having fun. It translates to the listener so well, it feels like I'm watching these guys on stage at a big arena.

Is it 70's heavy space rock? No, but it has no reason to be. If you want that, there's the fantastic albums they did in the 70's for that. It still sounds like Eloy, just with a new sound that fits the decade much better.

Modrigue ELOY turns FM

Curious cover for a curious title. This record is the very last I listened from ELOY. To be honest - and as a big fan of the band - for a long time, I didn't know "Performance" even existed. Is this a live release? No, it's ELOY's 1983 official studio album, in the middle of what can be called their second life. How came I never heard of it before? Let's see...

"Performance" shows the band's musical style turning more radio-friendly. Less progressive, the compositions are now more direct, upbeat and keyboards-dominated. The sound is also more plastic and synthetic, whereas the quality and inspiration have decreased. After the ambitious "Planets" and the effective "Time to Turn", the first listen may be a bit surprising.

The change is perceptible from the opening track, "In Disguise". In fact, once the shock is gone, this is a rather correct punchy song. "Shadow And Light" is also a nice hard space rock moment with its incisive riff and variations. In contrast, "Mirador" is a quite useless and repetitive instrumental. "Surrender" is the weakest track of the record, out of place and cheesy.

The enjoyable "Heartbeat" features a cool bass line and introduces the usage of the vocoder, which is on par with the synthetic musical style. "Fools" is the best track of the record, a catchy rocking ELOY moment with a good guitar solo. The ending song, the 8 minutes "A Broken Frame", is also the longest. Unfortunately, this composition is rather average and does not really justify its length.

Except the first self-titled debut opus, "Performance" is Frank Bornemann's least favorite ELOY record, its songs are rarely played at concerts. However, this is certainly not the Germans' worst studio album. Containing no genuine remarkable track (except maybe "Fools"), this opus is surely not great, but not bad either. As the band's least memorable opus of the 1973-1984 period, it contains nice catchy passages worth listening though. The last album to discover from this period, but ELOY still lives...