Eclipse
Bleed and Scream

Oh Please! That was the worst kind of cliché I have ever seen, flying-v guitars in a skull. What the hell were they thinking, do they really want to scare away those with a little bit of taste? no one with sophistication can really find an album with such a cover interesting. And the tittle, Bleed and Scream. What the hell! This doesn’t look good at all, but then there is some light in the darkness as I notice that Erik Mårtensson is the frontman of this band and he has done some really great stuff lately and I also noticed that it is the fourth album by this acclaimed band. Nevertheless, it was really difficult to manage to piece together their discography for some reason. But what about this fourth album then, does it live up to expectations?

Well, that my friend depends on who’s expectations you were referring to, it lives up to mine as I had none. Musically it is hard rock/metal that is very melodic. It is pieced together with some parts heavy metal of the Helloween school, some melodic poprock like the one of Europe and a touch of “look-at-me-I-can-play-the guitar” kind of like Yngwie Malmsteen. Then all this is spiced up with some AOR-seasoning spread thinly on top of this musical stew. Fortunately there isn’t too many cooks when it comes to preparing the sound which is of the highest quality, polished and polished and polished and polished until all the rough edges are completely gone. It is still quite heavy making me think that the heavy metal we are referring to in this case is gold, shiny but still heavy. But it is one thing to create a great sound and another to have the songs to back this sound up.

This is something that sorts the good from the less good and this is something that Eclipse has managed well as their songs are catchy and really good. In most part we should add because there is a moments before the final song where the album for a few songs dies away and becomes very indifferent. But before that we get a cavalcade of fantastic tracks of which I can mention the opener, the title track, Battlegrounds and S.O.S. This high quality music also makes me forget that the lyrics are quite cliché and really rather silly, not awful but they are silly. I guess writing lyrics wasn’t a talent that was given to the otherwise very talented Eric and his friends in this band. But the lyrics are just a little thing, as is the boring part of the album because overall it is a great piece of music well worth listening to.

So in the end I will recommend that you empty your pink piggybank and spend the dimes in there on this album because despite its silly looks and titles it is a great album, the best Frontiers release since Primal Fear’s Unbreakable in January, that says a lot. Funny how much easier the words flowed in the Swedish review and how the funectodes came and went while on this british review I just wrote a boring review of a great album, so if you cried from boredom while reading this review you are the right person to buy this great album, do it!