One Desire – Midnight Empire

One Desire deliver a decent set of tunes, with maybe half of them in the very good to excellent bracket, the other half in the medium to very good.

Written by: gdmonline

ARTIST: One Desire
ALBUM: Midnight Empire
LABEL: Frontiers
SERIAL: FRCD 1027
YEAR: 2020
COUNTRY OF ORIGIN: Finland

LINEUP: Andre Linman – lead vocals, guitars * Jimmy Westerlund – guitars, backing vocals, lead vocals (track 5) * Ossi Sivula – drums * Jonas Kuhlberg – bass

TRACK LISTING: 01 Shadowman * 02 After You’re Gone * 03 Down And Dirty * 04 Godsent Extasy * 05 Through The Fire * 06 Heroes * 07 Rio * 08 Battlefield Of Love * 09 Killer Queen * 10 Only When I Breathe

RATING: 85/100

WEBLINKS: Site Link | FB Link

Background

This is the Finnish band that released their debut back in 2017. They are fronted by Andre Linman formerly of Finn teen metal band Sturm Und Drang. Picked up by the Frontiers roster a few years back, their sound is modern melodic rock with a few AOR fringes.

That debut album was quite promising. Looking back and re-reading my article, perhaps it was slightly critical, but it was taken in the context of many threads. It certainly stood up as a decent album by years end.

This new one ‘Midnight Desire’ was originally due out in early April, but because of the Coronavirus, was officially delayed until third week of May. Copies are already out there on the Net (whether by fair means or foul), so we’ll take a listen to it, considering there’s not much that’s new on the market.

The Songs

The opener ‘Shadowman’ is an impressive lead-off, big everything, which kinda sounds like Eclipse lite. Stirring vocals and lots of raging guitars to be found. ‘After You’re Gone’ is the track which was selected as their first official video. It’s OK but I think I would’ve gone with something else personally. It does have a choice chorus though.

‘Down And Dirty’ takes a few moments to get into gear and live up to its song-title, though truth be told it’s not really a heavy hitter either. The delivery is far too kind. A band like Dynazty could’ve given this some real treatment. ‘Godsent Extasy’ has its moments, and shunts along at a good tempo like their Swedish rivals Creye. One of the better tracks here.

Though the song-title might suggest a rocker, ‘Through The Fire’ goes in the opposite direction, an acoustic ballad, though to be fair the choruses come to life with the electrics switched on. Through the middle section, the electrics stay on, making this song a bit Jekyll and Hyde. ‘Heroes’ is about where I expect One Desire to sit in the scheme of things. A track like this is akin to ground zero in terms of their overall style and sound.

Orchestral plucks and piano introduce ‘Rio’, it swirls in ballad mode mostly, and when it does rock out it’s only in third gear. Was the song about a person, a place or a river? Wasn’t quite sure. ‘Battlefield Of Love’ strikes hard after a brief acoustic entrance. There are some pauses and restarts but not enough to be a deterrent. Good song.

Just in case you were wondering, ‘Killer Queen’ is not a rehash of the Queen chestnut, this one is a OD original, and a good one it is too. Quite catchy in the chorus, which in hindsight might sound commercial, though there is probably zero chance of it ever being played on radio. The finale ‘Only When I Breathe’ opt to go down the ballad route, which is a shame. Why don’t bands go out in a blaze of glory like Dokken did with ‘Turn On The Action’ or ‘Til The Living End’? lol.

In Summary

Overall, this is a decent set of tunes, with maybe half of them in the very good to excellent bracket, the other half in the medium to very good. Musically there is no complaint, these boys know how to play and the songwriting is OK too.

If anything, I’d like to see them go up a notch and really turn on the rocket boosters. I believe they’d sound awesome when they release the brakes. How about it lads? Album release deferred from April 10 to May 22.

Video

After You’re Gone