ELOY — Performance (review)

ELOY — Performance album cover Album · 1983 · Non-Metal Buy this album from MMA partners
3/5 ·
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...
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