ECLIPSE - Are You Ready To Rock

Taking this cd for a review, I just thought :"Lets give it a spin in the car’s player on the way to work", nothing unusual so far. As soon as the first track "Breaking my heart again" was over, I thought "Well great song, but that’s common for an opening one, great melodies,great chorus and Whitesnake meets Talisman style". But, as soon as "Hometown calling" was over, with its catchy refrain and I moved on to "To mend a broken heart" I was sure that this release, had something special to offer. "Special" seems too poor to describe "Are You Ready To Rock", though. We are talking about a masterpiece of Hard Rock, full of inspiration, fantastic melodies, top performances and absolute hit-songs!! The Sweden based Eclipse, knows how to rock for sure and they prove it in this (their third) album. Elements of Whitesnake (especially the first track), Talisman (e.g."Souls"), Steelhouse Lane (e.g."Million miles away), Europe, Mr. Big (e.g. "Wylde one") spread around, accompanied by a modern sound, makes this cd a pleasant surprise. It is consisted of groovy, up-tempo songs, in its total, and sometimes it speeds even more (e.g. "Hard time loving you"), but without losing the hard rock-ish feeling and mood. Highlights?? Well the whole album is a highlight, with catchy melodies, that you will be singing even by the first time you take a listen to it! I especially adored "To Mend A broken Heart" with its heavy guitar riffing and great vocal line, the poser-ish "Wylde one", the Europe style "Hard time loving you" and "Breaking my Heart Again" with vocalist, Erik Martensson, doing his best and bringing in mind the great David Coverdale during verses and J.S. Soto during choruses. I don’t know if Eclipse can be considered as the band, which will continue the Scandinavian hard rock legacy of Talisman and Europe (among others), but it seems very possible. "Are You Ready To Rock" has all the prospects to become a classic one, so all the fans of hard n’ heavy rock, will be, at least, happy to own it. We are talking about a buy or die situation here, so, go for it with no hesitation.
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\r\nJohny "L.O.V.E. Machine" Litinakis\r\n