Swedish band ECLIPSE started out back in 1999, and two year later they released their debut album “The Truth and a Little More”. Since then they have provided us with half a dozen more studio and live albums, of which “Armageddonize” from 2015 is the most recent one. A deluxe, double CD edition of this album have since been made available as well. This one, as well as the greater majority of their other albums, was issued through Italian label Frontiers Music.
Eclipse is among the many bands that takes a step or three backwards in time when seeking inspiration for their material. In this case the mid to late 1980’s and to styles such as hair metal, melodic hard rock and AOR. Compelling, accessible and easy on the mind and the ears music residing on the borderland of rock, hard rock and heavy metal.
This is a band that does make a bit more out of their chosen style of music than many similar artists however. First and foremost because they have chosen to be more expansive in their excursions, but also because they appear to focus on creating songs containing more of an edge and bite than many similar bands.
They have a strong lead vocalist able to provide the vocals with bite and melody without losing control. This aspect in itself is a positive feature, elevating the end result and creating a strong and more favorable general impression when listening through this CD. They have also chosen to let the guitars have a more prominent place in the mix, often as the dominating and driving aspect of the song. That quite a few compositions actually have more of a heavy metal oriented bite and depth to them is most certainly a positive, likewise that the band doesn’t shy way from using both darker guitar sounds as well as crunchy and otherwise a more impact-oriented guitar sound.
They manage to pair this off with songs that generally speaking have a strong focus on moods and melodies, more often than not with strong singalong qualities and a certain penchant for those anthem style choruses. There’s also room for passages, sequences as well as whole songs with more room, air and a less impact oriented sound, closer to both hair metal and AOR style rock and hard rock than the melodic hard rock going on metal that appears to be something of a core foundation throughout. If anything should summarize this production, then it would be that it’s an elegant one, and yet an album that also comes across as vibrant and lively rather than safe and secure.
I would imagine that this is a CD that will appeal just as much to a regular heavy metal fan as it will to those with a stronger affection for the gentler pastures of melodic hard rock and AOR. With excellent mix and production as the icing on the cake, this is a quality production through and through, with only a couple of tracks coming across as of being of a slightly lesser stature than the others. I rather suspect that those who treasured the first couple of albums by 80’s band Dokken might be something of a key audience for this album, alongside those who find good quality melodic hard rock to be of general interest.
My rating: 84/100
