EVIL’S DESIRE – ‘Initium’ (Independent Release)
Another top notch metal female voices band, again from The Netherlands; it’s got to be something in the water there, I tell you! Overtly symphonic in an Epica/After Forever way – no bad thing there – Evil’s Desire are from Hellevoetsluis and originate from a metal act called Violent Queen which still exists today. The way vocalist Daphne Gobius du Sart tells it, “the new songs just didn’t fit in with the old ones, so the members decided set up a new project which they called Evil’s Desire. At the time, I was in another band together with Eric [Mol]. That band had split up and Eric asked me to sing in this new project, and this ‘new project’ soon became a band.”
Shortly after its creation in 2005 Evil’s Desire appeared at the Wallenpop Festival (this line-up’s only performance), but it wasn’t until Daphne and keyboard player Johan Seinen joined the nucleus of guitarist/vocalist Eric Mol, bassist Vincent Reedijk and drummer Gert-Jan Mulder in 2006 that things really began to take shape. In June 2007 a two-track EP was recorded and made available as a free download (the songs, ‘Touched By Insanity’ and ‘Black Sea’, are still available to listen to on their MySpace site) and in April 2009 work started on the debut album ‘Initium’.
‘Initium’ is a beautifully presented body of work, encased in a very nice digipack with a full colour and comprehensive booklet, with the band being responsible for every facet of the release. “It seemed to take took forever,” laughs Daphne. “But seriously, we did anything ourselves, from beginning till end so the whole process took a year-and-a-half. We recorded everything in Eric’s home studio, and all the mixing and mastering was done by Eric as well. And as it was his first time recording everything took that little bit longer, but we are all really satisfied how things turned out.”
It’s a truly astonishing album, and one well worth investigating. As there’s not one duff cut amongst the eleven on offer it’s hard at first to pinpoint highlights. Ms du Sart lists her favourites as “‘Perfection’ and ‘The Outcast’; ‘Perfection’ because of the mellow beats and kind of creepy parts. It has a subtle tension that builds up slowly that I really like. And ‘The Outcast’ is the best song ever to sing live. I get to let it all out! I like songs with emotion; singing is not all about perfection but also about conveying emotion.” For me, though, the prime cuts come earlier in the running order. If every album carried a track like ‘True Lies’ or ‘Destructive Union’ the world would be a much better place. Both are perfect examples of how to encapsulate everything the metal female voices genre stands for, and slowly unveil themselves over six-and-half minutes to reveal their true colours. And there’s more: the Maiden-esque guitar solo on ‘Nemesis’, for example, the aggression inherent in ‘Ego’ which captures the song’s lyrical theme of how an uncontrollable ego “can destroy all around and spread evil everywhere”; all examples of classic songwriting and perfect execution, and if Evil’s Desire continue coming up with material like this, it surely can’t be long before big things start to happen for them.
‘Initium’ doesn’t have an Iron Maiden budget or a Def Leppard production, but if you’re willing to forego that and listen to a young, passionate, exciting metal female voices band playing their hearts out for the sheer joy of making music, then this is for you. Trust me on this. Check them out at www.evilsdesire.com or www.myspace.com/evilsdesireband
John Tucker (c) October 2010