Album Review: Eclipse - Wired

It seems like every time I sit down to review an Eclipse album, I am faced with the same issue; Erik Martensson has already released an album this year with another of his projects. Why is that an issue? The truth of the matter is that while everything he has been involved with is good, his main band is actually the project I am least interested in. I'm not sure entirely why, but I love the albums he has made with Nordic Union and W.E.T. more than any Eclipse record, and I also had more fun with the last record from Ammunition, and even his contributions to the band Xtasy. So already having an album from him this year, "Wired" will inevitably have to meet that high bar.

Even before I pressed play, that was going to be nearly impossible. The first two singles off the record put a sour taste in my mouth. "Saturday Night (Hallelujah)" is a party anthem that doesn't speak to me in the slightest, and isn't one of his catchiest songs anyway. But the real bitterness came from "Bite The Bullet", which in my estimation is the worst song I've ever heard from him. If there's one thing Erik does as well as anyone in rock, it's write huge and sticky choruses. So why does this song barely have a chorus at all? It's a pedestrian song, at best, and downright puzzling why it was chosen to be a single.

Fortunately, the rest of the album delivers classic Eclipse melodic rock, with a strong emphasis on the melodic part. Erik writes songs that are the best modern take on what arena rock could have become, as the hooks on songs like "Roses On Your Grave" are every bit as stadium ready as "Livin' On A Prayer" was. The best rock music is ingratiating, inviting, and the majority of what Eclipse offers is right there among the best of rock. Not many writers on the scene right now can match Erik's knack for memorable songs.

When he's on his game, it's hard to see why Eclipse hasn't gotten even bigger than they are. Well, maybe it's not. Perhaps giving so many great songs to other projects of smaller scale isn't the wisest of decisions. If Erik saved the best of all his songs for Eclipse, he could have a discography of some of the best rock records of recent years. Spreading them out, it feels like Eclipse gets the leftovers sometimes, and especially here. If you took the best songs off W.E.T.'s "Retransmission" and the best songs off this record, the result would have a strong case to be the best record of the year. Split, and filled out with the lesser tracks, both are just good records that don't reach the status of being highlights.

So yet again, Eclipse leaves me saying the same things. I like them, and "Wired" is a good album, but it's weaker than what else I have heard from Erik. W.E.T.'s album from earlier in the year is a better record, so it's hard to sound overly excited about someone's second best effort of a year. That's the danger in being prolific; you get compared to yourself, and you can't always live up to your own standard. Eclipse was chasing a high bar, and even though this record is thoroughly enjoyable, it can't jump quite high enough.