With unsigned bands I always ask myself the question: "Why aren't they signed yet?" Sometimes I can't understand why because the band in question is of excellent quality and there must be a market for them. Sometimes I understand why, because the band doesn't add anything and isn't special enough. Evil's Desire belongs to the last group.

As much as I wish the band to get some benefit for their hard work, the first thing a band has to do is to make an excellent album with music that is above average. This Dutch band plays symphonic gothic female fronted metal as we know it from a lot of their colleagues. Sometimes there is a grunt or some clean male vocal parts, but they are not good. Just listen to the dual singing on the track "Destructive Union" and you almost wished you were deaf. That also counts for the high vocals of Daphne Gobius de Sart (beautiful name); she can't impress me. In the high notes she is sometimes false and there isn't enough power in her lungs. It proves that not every bird that sings is a nightingale.

The other members can play their instruments, but due to the uninspired arrangements and very average song writing, there isn't a moment that I get the creeps. With better and more original songs and a better production (mix), the album would become an average one. If I take the vocal performances into account too, I have an album in front of me where all the members mean very well, but the execution and the lack of originality makes it a minor one in the genre.

Perhaps some of the other symphonic gothic metal bands have put the standard too high for Evil's Desire? Work on originality, song writing and the vocal part and the next record will be much better.