ECLAT DE VERS

It's unclear to me why Eclat chose to release their first self titled album like this. The album contains 3 main songs and 5 short songs under the 3 minute mark, which makes this album extremely short clocking at 28 minutes only, hardly an album worth of material. Those short songs can be considered as ideas for something greater, one proof of that is the song "Ether" which earned a better and a much more developed version and made it to their 2002 album "Le Cri De La Terre" but can also be found in their 1998 live album as "Eternite". I wish the band took their time and develop those ideas to proper songs because the potential is definitely there.

The music here is mainly melodic symphonic rock with just a slight touch of Neo prog, in the vein of bands like Minimum Vital and Hecenia only with less emphasis on the keys lying mostly on Alain Chiarazzo's phenomenal guitar playing. The short songs though are featuring a different angle of the band, trying to show they are not Chiarazzo's band but are capable of writing something that is not guitar driven, something that will come in to fruition in their next album but not quite with this one. Keyboards here are nothing to be excited by, they never come to the front or solo, they are mainly atmospheric and just adds to the overall mood. Vocals play a big roll here and are quite good, sometimes reminiscent of Decamps. The slow and mellow songs feels like french chansons, which is nice. I don't speak french but from what I've gathered the lyrics are quite poetic and interesting.

The first three songs are complete and are the main attraction. I like Chiarazzo's combination of clean and distorted guitars, he always mix them together and create an interesting main theme or all sorts of breaks. His solos are fast and fiery but also can be slow and passionate. A good example and the album's highlight is "Courir" which is still being performed live. It's a slow paced song in which the guitar solo for the first four minutes, fantastic really and reminiscent of Steve Vai's playing with all his weird guitar bends. Just to be a little more diverse acoustic guitar is added and fills the vocal part with some beautiful touches. The rest of the album is by no means bad, it just looses the album's strength and offers some good ideas which are not developed further more. A real pity. Every one of them is good on its own right and shows the band not only trying to rock but also have a more symphonic side.

While Eclat are truly a good band and one can identify their talent and potential it's their next album which is worthy of getting. So while it is never bad it's not really essential too, but it does make a good addition if you're into the band's next studio album. 3 stars is fine.

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