Band: Eclipse
Album: Wired
– By Rob Jones –
In a year already stacked with extremely good hard rock albums Wired ranks among the very best of them, Eclipse set out to record a hard rock party album and on a musical level, they succeeded in that goal. Wired is energetic and powerful, every song on this album is catchy as hell and gets stuck in your head long after you’ve listened to the album a dozen times, and while the lyrics might not always reflect the party vibe the music itself is bombastic and exciting.
The album kicks off with the sounds of people in a bar while the band starts playing some mid-tempo picking before blasting out of the speakers into one of the best songs on this album “Roses On Your Grave “.
Keyboards share rhythm duty with the guitars on “Dying breed” and the song keeps the momentum going, “Saturday Night (Hallelujah)” is a weekend anthem that will likely be a staple for Eclipse in their future live sets and will have you singing “Hallelujah for the weekend!”
Beautiful acoustic guitars dominate the power ballad “Carved In Stone” which is elevated even further by great harmonizing and the powerful vocal ability that singer/ guitarist Erik Martensson is known for, Whether singing rock anthems or ballads like this one he knows how to elevate the song and engage the listener.
“Poison Inside My Heart” starts as another beautiful ballad that progresses in tempo before reigning it back in towards the end.
“We Didn’t Come To Lose” is both an anthem and mission statement that is made to be played in the biggest venue possible much like the rest of this incredible album. “The Things We Love” is almost a Celtic-influenced Queen sound and one of my favorites on the album. “Dead Inside” is CD and digital exclusive, it’s not on the vinyl, and in an interesting twist the vinyl has a completely different sequencing of the album’s tracks along with an exclusive track of its own, It’s definitely worth buying both for those excellent songs and the different track sequence lets you experience the album differently.
This might be the best album of the year honestly; it’s got it all! There isn’t a single note or moment on the whole thing that isn’t extraordinary. Extremely good singing, masterfully written and played music, great lyrics, the whole album is packed full of melodic rock earworms that get stuck in your head and gets you moving. This is a rare perfect album, in my opinion, everyone should listen to Eclipse and check out this incredible album.
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Ok, for the heck of it I listened to the album on youtube. Nothing really original – but does deliver the 80s hair band hard rock sound with a few melodic twists. No doubt musicianship is there but riffs are “same old same ole” chord changes from a thousand other bands now defunct – but pure rock – that one cannot deny.