Reviews list for Yngwie J. Malmsteen - Eclipse (1990)

The first Yngwie record that I would buy upon release also happened to be his weakest to the time. I don't recall having too much of a problem with it back in the day but in more recent times I'm finding myself struggling a bit. He's returned with an entirely new band (most notably missing the Johansson brothers) which has taken the more commercially accessible sound of "Odyssey" a little further for most of the album while attempting to balance it out with a few faster & more aggressive power metal numbers. It's the stuff that sits in between in the traditional heavy metal space that I really dig (see "Making Love", "Devil in Disguise", "What Do You Want", "Faultline") but I find the rest of the album to be pretty patchy, particularly the AOR/glam metal number "Save Our Love" which is nothing short of an atrocity. New frontman Goran Edman does a pretty reasonable job while keyboardist Mats Olausson struggles to compete with his well-known predecessor. The quality of the song-writing is noticeably weaker than on "Odyssey" with even the neoclassical metal instrumental title track falling short of the mark. "Eclipse" marks the first blemish on the guitarists resume for mine.

Yngwie begins the new decade with his most mainstream release yet. It’s a pretty smooth transition from Odyssey – the AOR and simplicity turned up a bit. It starts off pretty dull, and a good portion of the tracks are unmemorable anthems. The lyrics are quite poor, though they’ve never been great.

It’s not all bad, though – Eclipse is the first album where Yngwie uses his guitar to start layering simple yet effective melodies in almost New Age style. They play off keys and vocal harmonies, and there are some moments where all the sound comes together in really nice ways. Vocalist Göran Edman actually steals most of the songs, as for once Yngwie doesn’t do a whole lot of shredding and soloing. I won’t lie, these songs are about as uninspired and passionless as radio pop, but Göran certainly doesn’t lack ability, and he’s got a few fantastic hooks here. The album also ends with a string of really strong material, meaning it leaves a poor first impression, but a much stronger lasting one. I liked it more with each listen.

Overall – some of his worst, but also some of my favorite material from Yngwie.