Desert
Never Regret
Raven Music
2015
Desert is an Israeli sextet (at long last, no more quintets! I’m referring to the fact that over 2/3s of the bands I did review as of late were quintets… which I found a little odd) who’ve been around for twelve years now, with only one of the members being a native and the rest being actually immigrants from the Soviet Union, which is like, slightly unusual, but… never-mind... music speaks a universal language, I suppose... and Desert, speak that of rather traditional heavy metal, with a somewhat eastern flavor, which however is not as prevalent as for example, that “effect” is in bands like Myrath… for instance… these guys are a lot more straightforward, closer to say Sabaton, Powerwolf or some other Teutonic power metallists, although, they geographically are not from the North of Europe, so the said, “eastern” slant in the music, is quite strong.
“Never Regret” is their second album and the eponymous song is one of the better ones on the album. Speaking of the songs, they are pretty straightforward I suppose and rather charming but the vocals of Alexei Raymar, the band’s singer, are a little overindulgent and too pompously exalted, so with the mixed ethnic background comes a bit of an accent that’s not that traceable, or bad per ce, but you know straight away that English is not his native tongue… at times I thought I was listening to a mediocre clone between Hansi Kursh and Joakim Broden from Sabaton... the band has some female vocalist (on a guest capacity I imagine) on “The Road to You”, who is quite capable and benefits the song. They do cover a lot of historical or fantasy themes, like the Witcher saga, in the boyant “The Wolf’s Attack”, Assassin’s Creed in “Assassin’s Fate”, Christian themes on “Son of a Star”, Russia’s independence in “Imperial Eagle”, well I suppose “Flying Dutchman” should be pretty self-explanatory… to those who know the story and so on and so forth... you get the picture. On “1812”, which refers to the Napoleonic Wars and the rather big fail of France on their invasion of Russia, Alexei even goes for some “Scheepers” type of screams, which he seems to nail, pretty well…
I suppose, the whole album is fairly enjoyable, without, being something too amazing, but most of the songs show to be fairly well thought out and performed well, with only the vocals being trailing somewhat behind, because of the overtly pompous style in some of the singing. I don’t think that Alexei is bad, but he definitely needs to improve a bit to become antagonistic on an international level, as on the same genre, belong some of the better metal vocalists, out there, so the competition is fierce. I just think he needs to work a little more on expression… and I’m pretty sure, that Desert could pleasantly surprise us in the not so distant future.
“Never Regret” is their second album and the eponymous song is one of the better ones on the album. Speaking of the songs, they are pretty straightforward I suppose and rather charming but the vocals of Alexei Raymar, the band’s singer, are a little overindulgent and too pompously exalted, so with the mixed ethnic background comes a bit of an accent that’s not that traceable, or bad per ce, but you know straight away that English is not his native tongue… at times I thought I was listening to a mediocre clone between Hansi Kursh and Joakim Broden from Sabaton... the band has some female vocalist (on a guest capacity I imagine) on “The Road to You”, who is quite capable and benefits the song. They do cover a lot of historical or fantasy themes, like the Witcher saga, in the boyant “The Wolf’s Attack”, Assassin’s Creed in “Assassin’s Fate”, Christian themes on “Son of a Star”, Russia’s independence in “Imperial Eagle”, well I suppose “Flying Dutchman” should be pretty self-explanatory… to those who know the story and so on and so forth... you get the picture. On “1812”, which refers to the Napoleonic Wars and the rather big fail of France on their invasion of Russia, Alexei even goes for some “Scheepers” type of screams, which he seems to nail, pretty well…
I suppose, the whole album is fairly enjoyable, without, being something too amazing, but most of the songs show to be fairly well thought out and performed well, with only the vocals being trailing somewhat behind, because of the overtly pompous style in some of the singing. I don’t think that Alexei is bad, but he definitely needs to improve a bit to become antagonistic on an international level, as on the same genre, belong some of the better metal vocalists, out there, so the competition is fierce. I just think he needs to work a little more on expression… and I’m pretty sure, that Desert could pleasantly surprise us in the not so distant future.