Eclipse - Jumping From Springboards (2003)

Muy buen disco que presentáramos en su momento y que hoy vuelve al blog de la mano de sandy que sigue resubiendo los buenos trabajos brasileros que teníamos caídos. ¿Quieren buen progresivo y no les importa que estè cantado en inglés?... entrenle a éste disco entonces.

Artista: Eclipse

Álbum: Jumping From Springboards
Año: 2003
Género: Rock progresivo / Rock sinfónico
Duración: 49:17
Nacionalidad: Brasil

Lista de Temas:
1. Urban Hermit
2. Inca's Revenge
3. Jumping From Springboards
4. Mantiqueira
5. Puzzles
6. Manic Waltz
7. Traffic Jams
8. Ritual

Alineación:
- Aloísio Campelo / guitars, viola, vocals
- Patrícia Deschamps / guitar, vocals, viola
- Paulo Torres / bass, keyboards
- Sérgio Conforti / drums, percussion
With:
Zé Mendes / flute, saxophone

Ante todo, a pesar de que no tenía referencia alguna y empecé a escuchar el álbum con alguna decepción, al poco tiempo de escuchar este álbum me atrapó. Aclaro desde un principio que el álbum me sorprendió y lo considero muy, muy bueno, y lo recomiendo enormemente. Aclarado este punto, vamos al comentario en sí.
Y ante todo presentamos primero a la banda, seguramente desconocida por todos ustedes:

ECLIPSE se desarrolló como banda de tributo desde mediados de los '90 hasta principios del 2000. Formalmente eran una banda que interpretaba a PINK FLOYD, mas participaron además en la grabación de dos álbumes tributo: uno a ELP y otro a GENTLE GIANT (de su época tributo a PF no se conoce registro grabado). Entre 2000 y 2001 graban su primer álbum oficial, "Jumping from Springboards", donde se integra como músico invitado Zé MENDES (flauta, saxo). El álbum vio la luz en 2003 y desde la salida de éste no hay reistro activo de la banda.

Manticornio

Como decían nuestros amigos de Manticornio, este es el primer álbum de esta banda brazuca que sale un poco de las casillas de lo que hace la mayoría de bandas progresivas cariocas, no porque lo que hagan no sea rock progresivo tradicional, sino porque no está demasiado tirado al sinfónico melódico, aunque tiene bastantes elementos de ese género. Lo primero que impacta es la voz casi similar a la de Ian Anderson (bueno, no es que me guste la voz masculina de esta banda, pero tampoco me gusta la voz del señor Ian Anderson), pero el grupo no intenta nunca ser una copia o buscar una similitud con una banda en especial, así que la voz masculina va desapareciendo a medida que pasan los temas para que entre en juego la voz femenina. También a medida que el álbum avanza nos vamos encontrando con nuevos elementos musicales que al principio no aparecían y le dan más dinamismo al álbum completo, bases de jazz-rock, cambios de ritmo, pasajes bucólicos, aunque desde mi punto de vista en la canción "Puzzles" ese tramo tan tranquilo dura demasiado tiempo y tiende a aburrir. Pero no hay mucho tiempo para sormir porque enseguida continúan con canciones que tienen unos juegos instrumentales impecables (y complejos, por cierto). Se dejan ver aquí mayor cantidad de influencias de Genesis e incluso de bandas como Renaissance, Camel, VdGG o Premiata Forneria Marconi en una sucesión de sonidos de progresivo clásico que hará que se le caiga la baba a más de uno. Hasta ciertos paralelismos con el estilo de guitarra de Steve Howe aparecen de vez en cuando. Es más, uno de los grupos que más se parece en determinados momentos es a Yes, pero cuidado que también le debe mucho a la escuela del Canterbury.
Y sí, tiene flautas, pero olvídense del sonido de Jethro Tull, nada que ver. O mejor dicho, sí tiene que ver, pero no tanto y dentro de un montón de otras influencias.
Es de resaltar que, si bien el álbum no tiene aires pomposos ni grandilocuentes, el trabajo instrumental es grandioso, un enorme trabajo que vale la pena subrayar para que a nadie deje de echarle una oída. Todo tiene una calidad de ejecución y acabado absolutamente impecable.
Esta es una interpretación propia de América del Sur del mejor rock progresivo anglosajón, dando como resultado un álbum "soft" sinfónico pero muy emotivo y altamente emocionante y disfrutable.
Lástima que cantan en inglés, bueno, algo malo tenía que tener...

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!

Dieter Fischer

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

Thomas Szirmay

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!

Paolo Scandella

Jumping From Springboards is one of those albums that may have prog fans absorbed in that interminable debate of "is this neo-prog?" Eclipse borrows enough from Yes and Camel, particularly in the guitar and bass styles, that it's tough not to lump them into that category; and yet, they have their own personality which makes me want to call them "modern symphonic prog" or something like that: along the lines of a Halloween or Taal. There's also a dash of jazz-rock here and there, particularly in instrumentals such as "Mantiqueira".
Regardless of how you want to categorize them, Eclipse are pretty clearly quite good at what they do. I think what makes them appeal to me more than most neo-prog or modern symphonic groups is the lack of a cheese factor (a la Glass Hammer or even pop-prog stuff like Spock's Beard). Jumping From Springboards consists almost entirely of very nice melodies played on an array of electric and acoustic guitars, with flute embellishing the main themes and Squire-ish bass holding down the low end. Keyboards make brief appearances here and there, but are fairly uncommon and quite unobtrusive when present. This may be a downside for some, but it seems to work well for this group.
The vocals are perhaps the main point of interest: the singing of Patrícia Deschamps is really pretty impressive - she has a pleasant voice put to good use here, both in the singing of English lyrics (I wasn't bothered by her very slight accent) and in the use of wordless vocals, which are labeled as "scat singing" in the liner notes, but which isn't really scat singing in the jazz sense. Nevertheless, her voice is a definite draw for me. There are also male vocals here and there, and these are more heavily accented and much less impressive.
This is a very breezy, upbeat symph album that should appeal to most any Yes or Camel fan. Not particularly high on the innovation scale, but a pleasant, inoffensive listen for the symphonic prog fan.

Brandon Wu

Jumping From Springboards is the debut CD from Brazilian group Eclipse. The quartet comprises electric guitarist and vocalist Aloísio Campelo jr, acoustic guitarist and vocalist Patrícia Deschamps, bass guitarist and keyboardist Paulo Torres and drummer Sérgio Conforti, with flute and saxophone contributions from Zé Mendes. Brazilian prog? Latin American grooves under a syncopated rhythm and a mellotron samba?! Hardly. I confidently assert that if you played any part of this album to someone who hadn't heard of the band and asked where they thought they were from, the last suggestion would be South America and you'd get good odds that the majority would say England. There is a definite English feel to the music, the vocals are sung without a trace of an accent and the lyrics themselves are not only far more erudite and interesting than those proffered by a lot of native English speakers but are also flawlessly typeset (correct punctuation and a complete lack of any 'quaint' Americanisms, long live the diphthong!)
The album is interestingly arranged with each of the four songs, Urban Hermit, Jumping From Springboards, Puzzles and Traffic Jams, separated by an instrumental piece. However, as it is the longer pieces that include lyrics, there is plenty of space within the songs for extended instrumental passages. Overall, the album does have a nice flow to it with tracks merging almost seamlessly.
The style of the album is quite laid back, which is not to say that the arrangements are sparse, there is enough going on within each song to reveal to the listener a different facet of the instrumentation on each listen. Urban Hermit is split into five parts: the ominous introductory section gives way to a more mellow vocal section laden with flute work that is reminiscent of Jimmy Hasting's work with Caravan. A reprise of the opening riff heralds in a more up tempo couple of sections, the first of which has flautist Zé Mendes changing tack to sound more like Jethro Tull's Ian Anderson. The song ends with a final vocal section reprising the earlier section. Inca's Revenge is quite evocative of Hatfield And The North, particularly Patrícia Deschamps' scat singing at the beginning, although there is rather less emphasis on the jazzier side of the Hatfield's idiosyncratic approach to jazz-rock.
Jumping From Springboards is a rather good amalgamation of Camel and Yes and the opening guitar riff, repeated at various points throughout the song, will be instantly familiar to people who know (and love) Yours Is No Disgrace. Mantiqueira also bears some resemblance to Yes with Paulo Torres' bass driving things along in the best Chris Squire fashion. Puzzles is a pleasant ballad which features an interesting, but brief, guitar and vocal interlude that is vaguely reminiscent of early Al Di Meola which is followed by a Gilmouresque solo played by Patrícia Deschamps. The appropriately titled Manic Waltz has a quirky Gentle Giant feel to it and enlivens the tempo before going straight into Traffic Jams, the final song. The album is rounded off by Ritual, another driving bass instrumental that concludes the album as it was started with fluid guitar runs over the top and the introduction of saxophones adding new dimensions.
Overall, Eclipse have come up with a startlingly good debut album, not a progressive classic but certainly enough going for it to sit comfortably alongside other other constituents of the discerning music fan's collection.
Conclusion: 8 out of 10

Mark Hughes

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. Any the instrumental parts are prevailing here and some tracks like "Mantiqueira" for example where the jazz-rock touch is most obvious manage 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!

Howard Whiting

Despite a name strongly relying on vintage PINK FLOYD, ECLIPSE owes a lot to another British dinosaur of the Seventies-era: YES. This new Brazilian band mixes the so-called South-American symphonism with a personal vision, filled with enthusiasm, of the Anglo-Saxon Progressive rock. The fluid guitar soli played by Aloisio CAMPELO Jr strongly remind Steve HOWE (Jazz influenced), and keyboardist-bassist Paulo TORRES displays melodic lines Chris SQUIRE would have been proud of. The whole is performed with an excellent quality. With such an introduction, one could fear "Jumping From Springboards" (2003) will be a copy of "Fragile" or "Close To The Edge". No way ! The four musicians know how to go beyond their influences: some sequences could evoke as well CAMEL, HATFIELD AND THE NORTH (Guitar player Patricia DESCHAMPS’ singing is sometimes close to Amanda PARSONS’), Mike OLDFIELD, VAN DER GRAAF GENERATOR… And PINK FLOYD ! To conclude, let’s say that ECLIPSE has the true ability to become the new leader of the Brazilian Progressive rock scene. Don’t miss it !

clear-spot.nl

Otro gran trabajo llegó de Brasil, un país que no deja de sorprenderme. Lástima que estos tipos no continuaron con el grupo, podemos decir que ECLIPSE claramente tuvo todo el potencial para emerger como un nuevo líder dentro del rock progresivo en Brasil... pero bué... no están más... no somos nada... descansen en paz.
Creo que este álbum debería ser considerada una de las mejores obras progresivas que han salido de Brasil en la década del 2000-2010, realmente una delicia para los oídos.
Maravilloso e impresionante disco, muy relajante y altamente recomendado.