Author: Aleš Podbrežnik
Artist: Eclipse of Time
Label: Croatia Records
Release date: 22.12.2014
Running time: 46:32
Rating: 2.5/5
Can you imagine what metal that wants to go to Eurovision sounds like? The first questions pop up just from looking at the cover, which looks like it belongs on any random Easter compilation CD.
Eclipse of Tume are a band from Karlovac, Croatia, active since 2008, and »A World Without Hope« is their studio debut. I’ll admit I haven’t had this much trouble pigeonholing a band in a long time. The guitarist must be a metal fan, as shown by the hair-splittingly precise music-school scales and the guitar phrases pushed to the front of the mix. Layered over those phrases are keyboards that mostly imitate the synth sounds of eighties new wave and pop, with a clean, melodic vocal planted in the center. At moments you’d think something like: »Aha, this has a bit of a Finnish pull to it (symphonic power metal), a bit of Sonata Arctica, who are really a proper pop metal band, only they’re much better arrangers and composers.«
Eclipse of Time are still searching for their style and sound. They’re hugely committed and dedicated. That’s very good. They’ve got drive and a big hunger to prove themselves. First things first, though: they’ll have to think hard about whether to write their lyrics in English or Croatian. The English singing is dreadful, beneath any criticism, and maybe only their countryman Gibonni is worse. Often it’s just an unintelligible mumble. The vocals also squeeze out far more genuine emotion and passion when they tackle the Croatian lyrics. I think the band should write in Croatian going forward, or bring in a singer who’s far more comfortable in English, and the same goes for fitting the lyrics into the right meter. I don’t like being critical, and I like writing reviews in the first person even less, but sadly there isn’t a speck of originality to be found on »A World Without Hope«. The compositions, from the fast and punchy to the calm ballads, carry no recognizable authorial stamp, and so the album shows a band that’s still searching and will have to decide soon whether to write sugary songs and push into pop, or bristle up and pour more edge, darkness and occult into the songs, building a proper heavy metal résumé.
All of that aside, the debut »A World Without Hope« is a brave start. You have to begin somewhere, and few debuts deliver high quality right out of the gate. Eclipse of Time are talented musicians, armed with know-how, and the playing (the performance) on their studio debut shows it. It’s the compositions that need a lot more polishing in the future, with more focus on flow, fluidity and grabbing tension when building moods. They also need to pay more attention to better-packaged vocal harmonies, which currently whisper, take more care in placing individual ornamental passages over the motifs, measure out the right amount of notes in the solos, and stop forcing the vocals into every nook of a song, because it gets downright annoying. I believe the follow-up will definitely be a major upgrade on the debut, which still shows the band’s unmistakable musical potential.
Line-up
Kristijan Stepinac – vocals
Boris Kolarić – guitar
Mario Mišmaš – bass
Goran Glavač – drums
Production
Dragutin Smokrvić – Smokva
Track list
1. Loving You In A Lost Way / Prelude
2. Loving You In A Lost Way
3. Into The Night
4. Love Is A Poison
5. Upon Me And You
6. Ever Come Back
7. Hed Down South
8. A World Without Hope / Entr’acte
9. A World Without Hope
10. Još te uvijek volim (I Still Love You)
11. Za nju (For Her)
12. U prolazu vremena (In The Passage Of Time)
