Album Review: Eclipse - Megalomanium II

We need to have a discussion. What exactly is a double album?

That seems obvious, doesn't it? A double album is just an album that's twice as long, right? Well, no, that isn't always the case. You have all the classic examples, but then you have things like System Of A Down releasing two albums a few months apart. Is that still a double album?

Eclipse is stretching that to the absolute limit. As the title of this record suggests, it is the second half of their previous record, and band mastermind Erik Martensson has described this as the second half of a double album. But the problem is that the first one came out last year. Two records... a year apart... a double album?

I don't mean to be a grinch here, but I'm calling bullshit on this. I've been getting sick and tired of PR hype, people being called 'legends' who have never had a hit single, and on and on. I hit the breaking point of putting up with this kind of thing. If you don't release the two albums at the same time, it's not a double album, full stop. This is just another album that sounds exactly like the last one, and using the branding of a double to explain that doesn't make it any different.

That's a few paragraphs without actually saying anything about the record itself, which is fitting, because there isn't anything to say about it. If you've heard Eclipse before, you know exactly what you're getting with this one. Not only does it sound exactly like the last record, it sounds exactly like the ones before that too. Erik has now written so many songs between his various projects that the recycling of riffs and melodies has become too much to ignore. There are guitar lines and vocal lines here that bring heavy doses of deja vu.

But there is a slight difference this time, and it isn't for the better. Erik seems intent on trying to find mainstream success, and generate a 'hit', so more songs than ever feature "whoa oh" and "na na" sections of backing vocals. They both pop up in "Falling To My Knees", which would be a fine song otherwise, but the annoyingly nasal 'na na' bit sounds so bad I have to think it was intentional. I don't understand it all all, but surely if it wasn't the plan they would have recorded another take that sounded less like a bratty teenager.

I've always been harder on Eclipse than most. Erik has released three albums with his Nordic Union project, was part of a tongue-in-cheek album with Ammunition, and wrote songs for Xtasy; I like all of those more than any Eclipse record. I think that's because jumping from one vocalist to another helps to break up the similarity of his writing. When he focuses on putting out more Eclipse music, it jumps to the forefront.

All of that is to say "Megalomanium II" is a disappointing record, not a bad one. Erik writes too many solid melodies for that to be the case, but he's at the point where he's making records that no longer make a case for themselves. He needs to tweak something, even if it's just the guitar tones, so they don't all sound exactly the same. Nothing makes your music more irrelevant than confusing the audience with whether or not it's new. Not everyone can be Lemmy and make doing one thing for fifty years their gimmick.

Eclipse fans will probably love this record. That's great for them, really. I wish I could say I did, and that I could have written something from a more positive slant. That regret might disappear if I hear a third chapter of "Megalomanium" is scheduled for next year...