ECLIPSE AO VIVO

With the excitement over their recent release I decided to check out this band's earlier work first and these are fairly modest beginnings indeed. Back in these days the band were a strange mix of 80s influences with space rock tendencies. Many of the tracks have a punchy simple sound that mimics early REM, early Maniacs, early U2 and other 80s pop and new wave sounds. But in other tracks they merge this sound with clear nods to psychedelic and space rock a la 60s Floyd, Beatles and Stones. This album is apparently live as there are clear crowd noises heard on several tracks,so perhaps this should be moved to the live section. Sound quality is not very dynamic and sounds more like mid 70s than mid 80s.

The first few tracks are really quite unremarkable pop-rock with little imagination. The vocals certainly do not inspire and actually sound disinterested. The drumming and bass lines are simple but competent. The first sign of life shows up on the guitar solo for the 3rd track, "Declinio De Maio." Nothing jaw dropping but some decent leads. The best tracks are the longer psyched-up jams like "Sombras" and "Reflexos Da Noite." But even on these songs this band as "space rock" is certainly not in the same league of excitement and palpable energy as something like Kingston Wall. Suffice to say your favorite Kingston Wall or Djam Karet blows this thing right off the map. "Em Toda Parte" is the longest song and it is somewhere in the middle of this meandering one-gear jam that you realize it's just never going to take off. I really hate when I have to deliver this kind of review because there are good people behind every album but someone has to do it. The music here will curl the toes of very few and to my ears is pretty mediocre. There are some rather pedestrian covers of classics like "Tomorrow Never Knows," "Interstellar Overdrive," "Citadel," "Blues for Findlay," and "Within You Without You." While these are great songs in their original forms there is absolutely nothing about these performances that make these versions preferable or even equal to listening to the originals. They just don't add much to the album. 2 stars. I cannot recommend this title for anyone aside from fans of the group unfortunately and even there I do so with reservation. I admit that I'm disappointed with this but I look forward to hearing their later stuff that I'm guessing is a huge improvement over these early garage days.