SCHIZOPHILIA

After falling head over heels in love with Eclipse Sol-Air's brilliant 2011 album Bartok's Crisis, I had high expectations for the follow up album Schizophilia. Reading somewhere that it was produced by Eloy'sFrank Bornemann raised the expectations even higher.

So the big question is: Does Schizophilia measure up to Bartok's Crisis?

Schizophilia is an album that in many ways is similar to its predecessor but at the same time it is also different. We again find a mixture of male and female vocal singing in different languages (English, German, French) and a multitude of musical styles covering a broad spectrum (Rock, Pop, Folk, Classic, etc) all poured into exciting arrangements. This wild mixture is again delivered by highly skilled musicians and sound to me as if they had fun doing this album.

Compared to Bartok's Crisis we find an album that sounds a bit more focused and structured. I guess the producer had some role to play here. As this might be regarded as an improvement, I personally feel an album was created that sounds a bit tamer and to some extent not as exciting as Bartok's Crisis. But don't get me wrong. Schizophilia is still a pretty dam good record and I can only recommend it! If you could for some strange reason only one album by Eclipse Sol-Air I would say, take Bartok's Crisis. If you can get your hands on both of them get both!