Track Listing:
01. Dry Waters
02. Through the Wall
03. Satisfaction of Isolation
04. Broken Concrete
05. Breakdown

Rated:
8.5/10

Total Play Time:
20:27

Bands Webpage

Admittedly, I'm not much of a hardcore fan, much preferring the strains of typical and "familair" metal sounds. In other words, I've been cast inside a bubble of my own making since, oh...1985 or so. Still, I try to give everything a fair shake or two and Desolate's demo CD landing on my doorstep for review helps open a few doors once closed to me.

New York City born-and-bred, Desolate is a chaotic mix of grunge, hardcore and metal in an unhappy marriage of musical serenity. While a lot of the bands that I'm familiar with of the HC vein suffer from eithe bad production, bad talent or a combination of both Desolate suffers from neither of those to these ears. There's some real hard-hitting power behind these songs that really hold the flag of metal high - if I were to try and describe what I think the current sound of a HC/metal band should employ, Desolate has it and then some!

Formed in 2000, the band fought along with gigging and word-of-mouth to gain the respect and ears of even the hardest of the core metalheads. The band is rounded out by Jose growling and ripping into your senses, James doing a wall of bass, Sheprock handling the guitars and Rob on drums! The five-song demo has some very potent, very REAL tunes well worth checking out. The angry feel and disturbingly-hateful combo of both vocals and riffs set apart this offering from anything else I've heard from this genre yet.

I am enjoying this CD, I really am! I think it will be in some rotation in my CD player on my way to work in the morning to face unruly, rude people! If I get enough of "Breakdown" in my system I may well have to ask these guys for a job because I may well be out of one!

Well recommended!