Desert Land

The first ever album from Narnia I ever listen to. I've heard they made a very good impression with their 1st album then had a more than medium second release. This one is their third but the first I listen to. For me they play a metal that reminds 80's Hard Rock with more "power"... a Power Metal like 80s Hard-Rock if you will. They also have influences from Malmsteen. Apparently they're slowly getting rid of it, but you can still feel it a lot. Musically the sound is filled with good riffs and the singer is good in his job, although his voice itself is pretty common. The guitars are pretty cool, riff melodies "a la" Malmsteen flying all over the place and a pretty good production. The album is alternating with a fast and a slow paced song and contain too many slow moments for me. The songs are too deeply inspired by Malmsteen and tends to annoy me as they sound as copycats (not all of them). I'm sure it's not the case, but the thing is I'm already bored to hell by having 20 CDs in my collection sounding exactly the same from a guy who takes pleasure into releasing the same music over and over again (and not improving with time that is). Solos are also very cool in Narnia, but again its scales after scales Malmsteen like solos. The Malmsteen touch is still too much into their style if you ask me. I'm not impressed with this album because it seems like I've put yet another of Yngwie's CD into my player. I'll admit that it's good Malmsteen like music, no problem there, but I really get saturated by that sound, and Malmsteen must be the less original writer around, so I fail to see the point. I've got no doubts that Narnia are able to do better than this, but first they have to get rid of the Malmsteen blood in their veins... like a poison it paints their music and almost categorized them into a copycat band... although like I said I have this feeling it's not the case. It's not enough to avoid a Malmsteen riff on half the songs, it's too obvious that the need of doing the same music is present (like in the instrumental tracks). For me Narnia shows some good moments when not trying to sound like Yngwie, so there's hope :), especially on the last song where they seem to show a Malmsteen free sound, and it's very enjoyable, they are limit into going into mid-tempo Prog Metal with that song, but why not after all. A very good song, and I encourage them to continue upon this direction !. In the end it's not a bad release, but it feels like I knew the album before I've heard it, so from an original point of view the album is quite worthless. Production and the power in their sound helps making a couple of good songs then and there, but Narnia are starving for an identity of their own. When they found it then maybe they'll find a fan in me, but this release fails to do that. I have no doubts that Malmsteen fans will love this 3rd album, as it contains better songs that Yngwie could deliver these days. Others should try before you buy.