Desire

One of Malaysia's most consistently Heavy acts of the late 80's returned for a third and final time. New vocalist Eury has a more raspy, Blacky Lawless-like voice than his predecessor and it works exceptionally well with Desire's trademark, raunchy brand of Heavy Metal, even including excursions into more HR-like territories on 'token fistbangers' like "Perhitungan" and the opening title track "Kata Kata Kata". Their trademark HEAVY, crunching sound is as evident as ever in the crunchy "Bayang Bayang" and here's where I realize they could have become the South-East Asian answer to Metal Church had they wanted to take the more adventurous path. Not that they actually sound like MC on too many an occasion, but this could still have been their ideal niche if we are allowed to dream and/or to compare scenes on a global, contemporary scale.

It has proven to be almost a pattern on Malaysian HM records to hide away the best and coolest tunes of True Steel halfway into side B, and this album is no exception. "Tarian Gagak" is top notch, cachy faux-US Metal but the following "Azazil" is he True hit of the album It threatens to be yet another 'power ballad' in the opening half a minute, but then explodes into an absolute ripper of crushing, US-style Power Metal, merged with the finest of AsianExotic harmonies and twists. As a closer we get the instrumental "Wau Bulan", unfortunately stuffed with a few too many solos for its own good, but the unexpected chant in the middle saves it from redundancy.  A cool swansong from a cool, obscure band and this time the picture sleeve is indeed the original, real deal. If only we'd have gotten a few more rippers in the "Azazil"-vein, the rating would have gone up to Recommended.