ECLIPSE

This is a rather unexpected surprise from Brazil, getting my attention in light of the distant (aka non- instrumental) presence of Tempus Fugit's Andre Mello, a heavenly mixture of dreamy and breezy progressive WITH a strong Brazilian feel , with doses of Canterbury, jazz-rock and symphonic .The expressed comparisons to Bacamarte are quite correct, as there are lots of similarities . "Urban Hermit" is an 11 minute 4-part atmospheric introduction to their sensorial world, a lush Amazon of sounds and effects, assorted acoustic and electric guitars as well as MIDI effected bass clarinet and bandoneon from Aloísio Campelo , substantial doses of flute from both Patricia Deschamps (who croons nicely as well) and guest Zé Mendes. A successful piece of prog music. "Inca's Revenge" is a muscular beauty that showcases some fine Steve Howe meets Carlos Santana guitar stylings, windswept Hatfield & the Northettes vocalizings from Patricia and the monstrous bass of Paulo Torres, who combines Chris Squire brute force with some fretless magic a la Percy Jones. Drummer Sergio Conforti embellishes the tradition of percussion madness peculiar to this nation. The title track has a more synth oriented arrangement, all done on MIDI guitars, with some more soaring vocals and a long adventurous sonic voyage with plenty of exalted flair and gentle passion. "Mantiquera" booms along like a speedy piranha, a tidy little jazzy promenade that effectively keeps the flow glowing. "Puzzles" is a bluesier workout, with some superlative scat singing and a blistering guitar solo from Patricia while the others keep the riverboat on track. The very brief "Manic Waltz" searches out the edgier extremes of progdom, tossing in some dissonance into the psychedelic pot, justifying the title. Bleeding directly into the lyrically interesting "Traffic Jams", the guitar takes on some severe pirouettes, dizzying and squealing when necessary, evoking the choking enigma of the urban nightmare. "Ritual" concludes this rather flourishing exercise, definitely worthy of some future release, with all the ingredients to charm and seduce the prog adventurer. The sole caveat, a first rate male vocalist would greatly enhance this crew's ability to impress. Artwork is first rate. 3.5 anacondas

One hell of an album! If you have the chance to hear it, because it's not so easy to find. Well, first of all, it's not the usual neo prog. One can definetly hear the southern influences. Some arrangements reminded me of Santana's Borboletta. Other spots made me think of P.F.M . But this band has his sound, and probably what you hear is more the common ground than a real will of emulation. Oh, and the best Rickenbaker Bass sound I ever heard! To make Chris Squire cry vengence. The only reason why I don't give this album 5 stars, is the vocal parts. Not bad, really, and not so important for the overall album balance, but Eclipse don't have a bright singer, just a "normal" one. It's really a shame that a band like this one is not known at all. Last but not least, one of the best Psygnosys-style covers I ever saw. That's what dragged me to this album, and for cause!

So here we have another Brazilian band with the (not quite spectacular) name ECLIPSE that might lead to the conclusion that we can expect some Floyd-ish sound. But this is not the case at all rather can we listen on "Jumping From Springboards" to some very pleasant modern progressive rock that is really not that much derivative and moreover not similar at all to the usual Retro Prog produced by bands like Glass Hammer, Spock's Beard or Flower Kings which is very welcome at least to me. Reminiscences to seminal bands are absolutely marginal like Squire-ish bass or female vocals that remind to Hatfield & the North. The compositions are highly versatile and are ranging from rather mellow ones to more upbeat but never harsh ones, just very good modern symphonic prog (NOT neo prog) with a dash of jazz-rock here and there. Keyboards are playing a quite subsidiary role what I'd like to add as an advantage (all keyboard freaks will be appalled!) remembering all those newer bands using squeaky synths tunes in a exaggerated manner. The music really does not suffer at all from this since guitarist Aloisio Campelo uses quite often a MIDI-guitar that enables him to emulate instruments like clavinet, bandoneon, trumpet, moog, bells, tuned percussion and - as well - Mellotron. The (often wordless) vocals by Patrícia Deschamps are very pleasant, more than the (occasional) male ones which are not superb but not disturbing or annoying neither. Anyway the instrumental parts are prevailing here and some tracks like "Mantiqueira" for example where the jazz-rock touch is most obvious manage to appeal a lot without any vocals apart from some wordless ones.

Overall I can summarize my fully positive and astounding impression of this album by saying that ECLIPSE is next to INDEX for sure one of best prog bands coming from Brazil nowadays and is absolutely able to provide a quality in their music that comes very close to the one in BACAMARTE's. Moreover it's far away from the usual schmaltzy symphonic prog coming from that area.

Highly recommended to every prog fan looking for something different than the common standards!