Desesperanza

“Desesperanza” is the first full length album of Desesperanza. Surely you are wandering now who they are. It is an one man side-project of Hermit Ov Tehom of Precaria, who some time ago released their first album and I have a very good opinion about it. So this project was formed in 2006 and by everything we said with Hermit Ov Tehom, here he releases his first full length album which in reality it is a collection of older and newer of his compositions. Generally this album is the repressenting image of the journey of Desesperanza since their creation until now. The album contains four long compositions and a demo edition of the first one, with overall duration of about forty six minutes long and it was released in December of 2014 into digital format and into cassette. All those of who have listened to the album of Precaria you will understand that this one too is not so far from Precaria’s. So musically Desesperanza present us a quite violent, dark and chaotic Black Metal that despite its few melodic parts or its Doom, atmospheric passages, in general it is devastating, chaotic and absolutely dark.

The riffs are heavy, bass and dirty. They mainly are of fast or very fast, chaotic speed, focusing more into the brutality and the violence instead of the technic. The atmosphere that they create, really is very dark and there are a lot of times that I felt like I am in the middle of a storm and to whirl violently, mercilessly and with no ending. On the other hand though, that merciless chaos was quite tedious in a lot of parts, while the continuous repetition of the same ideas over and over, got me bored a lot of times. Another element that may make the listen difficult for the listener is the huge duration of the compositions. Even if the structure of the compositions were as good as it could be, their long duration and the style of the music with the very few changes and the many chaotic parts, make that listen of the album very difficult.

The performance of the instruments is good. The guitars have dirty and heavy sound. Depending on the part they become brutal and dark, while into the slower parts they become cleaner and more melodic, giving away their melodic, atmospheric influences too. The bass is heavy and very dirty something that makes it difficult for the listener to listen to its lines. The drums have interesting lines while they are played with accuracy but also with much passion. The vocals are very authentic, passionate and intense Black Metal vocals that they add intensity and some kind of insanity to the compositions. The production is bass and dirty and it produces a noisy sound, something that doesn’t help the music at all. The mixture is trying to find a balance between the instruments and to make the compositions massive, but in the end the result reminds the sound of a rehearsal. Finally, the lyrics are contained in the inlay of the cassette but they are written in Spanish and I don’t understand what they refer to.

To conclude this review, I feel somewhat disappointed. I feel that because Precaria had created a very good impression to me and I was expecting, if not something better, at least an equal one regarding the quality. The album though, has some quite interesting parts but in general aspect it has almost nothing to offer to the listener. If they correct some problems in the compositions and in the sound, maybe their next one would be better. Until then I can’t suggest to you nothing else than to avoid it.