We featured Desert Near The End as a Band of the Day quite recently, but I wasn’t expecting to get their current album Of Fire and Stars to drop through my letterbox afterwards! Getting a chance to give it a spin is like putting a name to a face. Only putting music to some text. OK, it’s a stretch but hopefully you get my point.
They hail from Greece, a country we’ve featured a lot lately, and they cite their influences as being 90s metal bands. I’d say those bands are the ones on the heavier end of the scale. Vocals are harsh, and the music straddles thrash and death at times with a definite undercurrent of simply “heavy”. The two tracks on the album that show the breadth of their styles are probably “The Call of the Stars” which features blistering pace, and “Earth and Water” which chugs along and is overall just more evil.
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For a three-piece, they make a great noise though for the album’s purposes this is partly down to a bunch of guest appearances. Desert Near The End have no official drummer, so the stool was warmed by Jonathan Garofoli who is definitely better than a drum machine! He powers through every track, his fast beats merging well with Akis Prasinikas’ bass guitar.
Panos Kalompratsos is the regular sole guitarist, and he’s ed by Thanos Kollintzogiannakis who covers the rhythms which really help give the songs some depth. Kollintzogiannakis, as well as Constantine Maris and George Thanasoglou, are gifted a couple of solos on various songs as well. Add a handful of guest growlers and screechers and you have quite the group effort!
Of Fire and Stars is pretty epic in scale, covering so many subgenres as well as featuring some “big” sounds. “The Final Frontier” which comes in towards the end is probably my favourite on the album. Bringing together some great hair-waving guitar rhythms and headbanging solos, it’s got the mix just right.
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Definitely a pleasant surprise and an album I will return to. It’s got enough of that “soundtrack” feel that you can put it on while you’re doing other things, but now and again it just grabs you and makes you listen.
Of Fire and Stars is out now
Desert Near The End: facebook | youtube
