TOTAL ECLIPSE - ACCESS DENIED

My interest in this release is easy to understand when you look at the first couple discs by Juno Reactor. At the time, Juno Reactor didn't have the rotating line-up it has today. The group was made of mostly by Ben Watkins and a couple other guys. One of them was Stephane Holweck. Although Holweck wasn't credited with writing all of the tracks, he was given credit and during my initial fascination with the band, it was enough to make me search for everything this group was doing. Of course, in my fervor, I quickly latched onto Ben Watkins as the constant element on all songs and releases. But I wasn't tuned into his specific sound enough to know for certain what I was being drawn to. Because of this lack of insight, I picked up this Total Eclipse album at Tower Records in Las Vegas and I paid full price for it. Big, big, big mistake.

I could seriously break each track down and tell you exactly what it is I don't like about it, but suffice it to say Total Eclipse is completely unlike anything I'd heard on Juno Reactor. The music certainly falls into the trance category even though the beats tend to branch out to jungle, house and sometimes acid; the differences in beats can't mask the tedium of these tracks. With weak drum tracks and boring ambient motifs that never seem to progress, Total Eclipse falls into the kind of loopy trance that borders on insanity. There's little to no progression on any of the tracks, although some of them do succeed in calling the title to mind. And I don't mean that as a compliment. Take 'Quandary' for example... It features a stuttering rhythm over sparse musical arrangements that certainly make you question what you're listening to. Of course you also question why anyone would write such a thing, where's it's going and what the point of the whole darn thing is anyway.

The most remarkable track is 'XXL Files' and again, it's not because it's a great musical number. It's because it's such a bizarre and pointless exercise. The track is a recorded conversation between a radio talk show host and an "alien" inhabiting the body of a human host. The band members play the boring interview over some tribal drumming and minimalist musical arrangements. Neither the interview or the music is enough to make you care to listen all the way through. It's also the one track that somewhat fits the conspiracy theory of the album's title. Usually I'm drawn to bands involved in strange musical experimentation. In this case, the result isn't avant garde, it's avant crap.

If I was forced to choose one track worth salvaging from this miscreant secretion, and I do for my sister's playlists, it would be a toss-up between 'Screenager (Error 404)' and 'One Size Fits All'. Both are at the very least tolerable to listen to. You can tune them out and let the music flow over you. Sadly, I have to give this record a negative review. My final words: KICK A FORK IN MY HEAD.

TOTAL ECLIPSE - ACCESS DENIED
01. Harbinger
02. Quandary
03. One Size Fits All
04. None Of Your Business
05. Midnight Suspects
06. A Piece Of Cherry Cake
07. Screenager (Error 404)
08. XXL Files