Album Review: Our Mirage - 'Eclipse'

German post-hardcore band Our Mirage churns out an emotionally strong and multifarious third album, Eclipse.

The German post-hardcore band Our Mirage is one of the most recent emerging metalcore acts that have been picking up steam over the past month. Although the band isn't particularly interested in making grand gestures in their music, what makes their music stand out is their commitment to hitting hard and emotionally connecting with listeners through their lyrics. Their third album outlines this compelling concept. Eclipse is not about making huge impressions, or going toe to toe with other bands in the genre, it's about being organic and honest about their emotional delivery.

"Suffocating" is beautifully atmospheric and engaging throughout. With the vocals taking the helm and a breathtaking guitar solo that evokes an effectively powerful venture, Our Mirage creates another multi-layered way to dynamically tell a story on this album without going off course.

Eclipse begins by demonstrating that their production values are valued. The album's diverse first track, "Awakening," pulls off an enthused performance emphasized by a hugely rich production that supports their emotional delivery. This will be a recurring theme throughout the whole genesis of the album.

With the following song, "Black Hole," Our Mirage continues to fervently explore melodic terrains while remaining mindful of its metalcore roots. By combining these two components in a unique way, they create a polished lugubrious, yet thoughtful listening experience.

"Suffocating" is beautifully atmospheric and engaging throughout. With the vocals taking the helm and a breathtaking guitar solo that evokes an effectively powerful venture, Our Mirage creates another multi-layered way to dynamically tell a story on this album without going off course.

From there, explosively cogent, "Learn To Be Alone," blends a cloudburst of squalling guitars and thundering drums. Paired with the gifted versatility of Timo Bonner's vocal control, Our Mirage maintains their strong balance between titanic riffs and baroscopic touches throughout the album.

What makes Our Mirage stand out among other metalcore bands in the genre is not just the gorgeous production values, but the individualistic atmospheric attention to detail each track delivers, along with its dance between delicate instrumentation and massive distortions. This becomes effectually apparent in the multifarious experience, "Vicious Cycle," showing how the band constantly redefines how to use these characteristics throughout the record.

"Remedy" and "Eclipse" provide some of the most potent listening junctures on the record, as they are some of the most denuded tracks yet still provide a graft of heaviness we have consistently seen time and again on Eclipse. These songs' lyrics really stand out since they conceptualize small emotional swings, which makes them pretty dramatic movements toward the album's conclusion.

The album ends with the sun-drenched finale, "Summertown," featuring Breakdown Bros. Although it may not strictly fit with the other tracks' energies, it is nonetheless contagious, and the album concludes on a good note.

Many positive things may be said about Eclipse. While not wholly revolutionary, Eclipse doesn't strive to reinvent post-hardcore; instead, it focuses on eliciting an emotional response and the process of getting there, and in doing so, Eclipse succeeds.