Band:	Eklipse
Album:	A Night In Strings
Style:	Pop rock
Release date:	March 2012

01. Wonderful Life [Hurts cover]
02. In The End [Linkin Park cover]
03. New Moon Theme [Twilight OST cover]
04. Home [Depeche Mode cover]
05. Cry Me A River [Justin Timberlake cover]
06. Cloudbusting [Kate Bush cover]
07. Paparazzi [Lady Gaga cover]
08. Run [Snow Patrol cover]
09. Mumbai Theme [Bombay OST cover]
10. Clocks [Coldplay cover]

Rating suplement: If you take a crappy pop song and play it on cellos, it's still going to suck, sorry.

Oh boy. I always thought that when I am forwarded my first review request from a band which clearly doesn't belong on Metal Storm, I'll just throw it in the bin. But after listening to this, I felt like I had something meaningful to say. And that would be, may the labels that sign redundant bands instead of awesome ones go completely bankrupt, possibly as a result of a ridiculous, Hollywood blockbuster-style robbery performed by music nerd vigilantes.

Eklipse, a newly formed string quartet from Germany, have the most pretentiously written biography I've ever laid eyes upon, mostly because of the number of times the writer of the former has mentioned words such as "sex/sexy", "desire", "darkness" and "mystery". But then again, maybe it's not the only selling point? Maybe the four ladies have actually taken chart topping hits and tweaked the arrangements in a way that adds meat to the bones of these impoverished music pieces? Maybe this will bring pleasure to any darkly inclined ear?

Nope, sorry, apart from their image (which is clearly lifted from performers such as Emilie Autumn), there is nothing remotely alternative about Eklipse. Taking the most shallow and annoying "hits" of the past ten years (save of Depeche Mode's "Home", the wonderful Kate Bush's "Cloudbusting" and the "Mumbai Theme", which still manage to sound not very exciting on this album) and playing them without changing much of the actual music only reveals all of these songs rely on one short catchy melody that gets repeated endlessly. Congratulations, you have reminded us of the fact that most of current pop music sucks. Now could you move on to doing something more useful with your instruments, like covering any of the songs from pop music's history which have actually stood the test of time? Or some of today's pop songs that will still be remembered after 20 years? Anything that's not, you know, Snow Patrol?

Obviously, everything sounds a little nicer played by a string quartet and they're not bad players, although they're far from virtuosos. But why listen to this? If you like string quartets in particular, why not listen to this instead? Or this? If you're not into classical music, why not find contemporary players that cover pop/rock music that has a little more merit? If you like metal combined with classical instruments, look for Apocalyptica's self-titled or Reflections, search for talented musicians on Youtube that cover entire albums on piano in one take - anything that actually took some effort to put together. Not this.