ECLIPSE

The early years of Malmsteen's career were tumultuous ones and the quality of the music changed dramatically. In reviewing Malmsteen's first five albums, I have hereby made use of all of the five different available ratings: five stars to Rising Force (the 1984 debut), four stars to Trilogy, three stars to Marching Out, two stars to Odyssey, and now, finally, one star to Eclipse. The material found here is about as lacklustre as the debut is brilliant. For this album, Malmsteen has a whole new band backing him up with all the previous members having left after the previous Odyssey album. One major shift compared to previous albums is that the exceptional Johansson brothers (Jens and Anders) are not here anymore. The absence of Jens in particular leaves a vacuum in the keyboard department. His replacement here is either nor capable or not allowed to display such exhilarating keyboard solos that could be found on all the earlier albums. This radical change in personnel sadly coincided (caused?) a radical change in the musical direction. The music found on Eclipse is no longer Neo-Classical Metal and certainly not progressive Neo-Classical Metal. Rather, this is straightforward Hard Rock and AOR music.

On a positive note, Göran Edman took over from Joe Lynn Turner as the vocalist for this album (I never liked Turner's voice). The lyrics, however, are almost unfailingly terrible with banal titles such as Making Love, Save Our Love and What Do You Want. Whitesnake could perhaps be proud of such trite numbers, but given great albums such as Rising Force and Trilogy I would have expected more of Malmsteen. Thankfully, his next album (Fire & Ice) would be a vast improvement over this one. Not recommended!

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