Review Summary: The best album from the most underrated rock band.
Eclipse are in my opinion the most underrated band of the past 20 years. They are simply the best at doing melodic hard rock. From the first song on this album you already know what you are getting. The guitarists as usual do an amazing job. This is the best Eclipse album and my all time favourite album from 2017.
The first 3 songs on the album are really good. Vertigo is a great opening. Never Look Back and Killing me are both great songs. Great vocals from Erik on those songs. Don't have much to say about the first 3 songs.
We do get the best vocal performance from vocalist Erik Mårtensson on the song Hurt tho. Hurt is probably the slowest song Eclipse have made and also their best powerballad, the song is screaming for a guitar solo around 2:40 but sadly we don't get a solo. Hurt not having a guitar solo doesn't ruin the song or make it worse tho. Before Hurt there is one song that I simply just love. The Downfall of Eden is one of the best songs on this album, maybe only beaten by the last song that I will talk about later. The lyrics on The Downfall Of Eden seem to touch on the..well the downfall of a kingdom named Eden. While most songs by Eclipse never make you stop and think about life or get extremely deep they are very well written and stick with you. Erik Mårtensson does an amazing job on the vocals on this song and...well on every song on this album.
Jaded is in my opinion the worst song on the album and it's not even that bad of a song. It's still a good song but sadly falls short because it's placed right after Eden and Hurt. There isn't really a lot of negatives about the song, maybe it's not big enough but at the same time you shouldn't follow up the slowest song on the album with the fastest and biggest song on the album. Born to lead is the next song on the album and if you thought that this album might go downhill after Jaded then you are wrong. Born to Lead should have been the follow up to Hurt, I think that it would have worked better as Jaded just isn't good enough.
For Better or for Worst is the next song on this album and it is really good. Dare I say even amazing, the guitar riff is really catchy and the pre-chorus is the best one on this album. The lyrics are really good on this song too.
No Way Back is a really fun song, the loud guitars really work here and the drummer does a really good job on this. The song is self explanatory in terms of lyrics and themes. I have to say this about this song tho, Erik Mårtensson repeats the line "No way back" a bit too much on this song. I know its the title of the song but I think it's overused on here.
Night Comes Crawling comes next and its really good but slightly worse then No Way Back and For Better or for Worse, it just doesn't stick to you the way For Better or for Worse or The downfall of Eden does. The last 45 seconds of this song are a bit underwhelming because the chorus isn't big enough.
So this album is basically over, there is no way that this album could end with the best song right? Well I am pleased to say that the last song (black rain) is in fact so good that it's worth buying this album just for it. The chorus to this song is insanely catchy. Black Rain is also the heaviest song on the album and has the best guitar solo on this damn thing. The guitar solo is so ***ing good how do i even describe it. Honestly just listen to the song and see for yourself.
And like that this album ends. If you are a fan of melodic hard rock then you probably already know Eclipse and have listened to all of their albums including their latest one (Paradigm). If you are not a fan of melodic hard rock i still think that you should listen to this album, but with an open mind obviously.
This album is easily a 9/10 from me.
