### Eclectika: Dazzling dawn

#### 13/07/10 || Khlysty

Eclectika is band that I can easily hate. Mixing atmospherics, acoustic passages and shoegaze with something-like-a cross-of-power-metal-and-symphonic-black-metal is not exactly what I have in mind when thinking about music that tickles my pleasure centers the right way. Also, trying to sound like a cross between The Cocteau Twins and a run-of-the-mill sympho-black (wow, just though this, ain’t it cool?…), with dashes of balladry here and there is not something that’s easily non-hateable by yours truly.

Eclectika is a trio from France, comprised of one dude and one dudette who share vocal duties (the dude has a passable black metalish rasp, the dudette is clean and “operatic”) and one other dude who plays all instruments and has some vocal input, although I cannot for the life of me understand why a trio has to have each of its members doing vocals. The music is basically melodic and “atmospheric” in an almost Enya-esque way that I really despise, with lots of synths and pianos and glockenspiels and whatnot. From time to time, the instrumental guy adds some guitar crunch (that’s when the raspy-vocals dude enters the scene, probably to add some “darkness” and “heaviness” to the otherwise uninteresting music).

Most songs are around the four-to-five minutes length, which makes them at least one minute longer than they should be. The riffs are of minor interest and the music lacks staying power and rousing potential. The synth parts sound –at least to me- dated and derivative. Some “noise” experimental tracks that crop here and there are completely daft and out of context. The production is pretty lifeless, rendering everything “calm” and “soothing” in a most negative way. But, in my opinion, the most damning aspect of this record is that it’s not heavy, as much as it tries to pass as something like that. It sounds like a quasi-Jean-Michel Jarre record that wants to sound menacing and celestial, at the same time… and totally fails. I really cannot understand who might be interested in listening to such music. Me, I’m outta here, real fast.

- Information
- Released: 2010
- Label: Asylum Ruins Records
- Website: www.eclectika.fr
- Band
- Aurélien Pers: vocals
- Alexandra Lemoine: vocals
- Sébastien Regnier: instruments, vocals

- Tracklist
- 01. The end
- 02. Dazzling dawn
- 03. Sophist revenge
- 04. Les démons obsédants du regret
- 05. There is no daylight in the darkest paradise
- 06. Experience 835
- 07. The next blue exoplanet
- 08. Marble altar
- 09. Stockholm syndrome
- 10. Corps décharnés