Eklipse – A Night in Strings – Album Review

On their upcoming ‘Imagenaerum’ tour, Nightwish have asked a string quartet to support them. If your idea of a string quartet is that of a stuffy four piece in penguin suits, then nothing can prepare you for Eklipse. These girls are glamorous, sexy (plenty of PVC, lace, corsets and even an eyepatch!) and, just to rub even more salt into the wound, they’re incredibly talented.

A Night in Strings is Eklipses’ offering towards the new trend for string versions of popular pop and rock songs, following in the same vein of Vitamin String Quartet. Covering songs from acts such as Kate Bush, Depeche Mode and Linkin Park (I’ll overlook the Twilight theme tune), the classical and pop musical worlds collide in a pretty wonderful way.

You may scoff (who am I kidding, of course you will, I’m an embarrassment to the musical world) when I tell you that one of my favourite covers on here is of Justin Timberlake’s ‘Cry Me a River’. I love the cello and an intense, angry one is absolutely fabulous. The instruments are Eklipse’s punchbags, with every blow of the bow punching ferociously through the piece. Conversely, the sumptuous, soaring strings of ‘Run’ shows how beautifully stirring violins can be.

Even with bands such as Apocalyptica and VSQ out there, unfortunately I don’t think Eklipse will appeal across as wide a board as their tracklisting hopes for. A Night in Strings seems a little disjointed with such a wide variation of covers, that I’m not entirely sure if I like it as a whole work, despite the talent offered and how wonderfully it is performed. I’ll tell you one thing though, a string quartet never looked so good.

Track Listing

1. Wonderful Life
2. In the End
3. New Moon – Theme
4. Home
5. Cry Me a River
6. Cloudbusting
7. Paparrazzi
8. Run 3:51
9. Mumbai – Theme
10. Clocks