Damned NationRoad of Desire

While 1980s born hard rock bands bordering on metal have diluted their sound with folk-acoustic noodlings or muddy distortion ridden alternative sounding mess, fans of the 80s - early 90s sound havent really had too many old favorites to turn to lately. But that small section of metal is being taken care of these days by fresh and new hard rockin bands that have been popping up such as Steelhouse Lane and Damned Nation. This Scandiavian outfit has alot going for them, mainly their high polished, mostly mid-paced hard rock, very European in flavor with a good dose of Whitesnake overtones. In fact, the band sounds more like the extremely tight Whitesnake wanna be band, Germany's Gotthard. Even the vocalist reminds me more of the Gotthard singer (and *he* reminds me of David Coverdale). The production on the album isn't bad, all performances are very solid, with nothing in particular standing out, for its the songs that make the band what they are, so I'll just jump right into that.

While "Road to Desire" is an overall, very solid album, there are several songs that are worth writing home about. "When the Truth Becomes A Lie" has cliched lyrics about a young, wild, soul already tortured by 'broken promises, chasing shadows down the drain', but who cares what he's singing about, and so what if the lyrics are pretty shallow, the song is uptempo and catchy as hell. A little spanish guitar flair is sprinkled in here too. Typical guitar hero soloing but it fits. Some piano and belted lyrics pleading for a second chance in love, crank up to a midtempo melodic barnburner in "I Got What It Takes". This is my favorite song on the album with its 80s gang, sing-along chorus, and bluesy tinted bass banging rhythm. Another piano laden opening and squeal-city guitar riffs kick off "The Reason I Live". More melodic goodness and another bass humming rhythm providing something for the rest of the song to sit upon. Crunching out about as heavy as this album gets is "Calling Your Loveline". Borrowing a little from Pretty Maids and some yearning David Coverdale-ish vocal delivery here, this tune cranks up and turns out very solid. If they had only shaved off the repetitive musical mess at the end, not repeated the chorus quite so many times, and cut the tune back to about four minutes, this would have been the highlight of the album, but as it is, the song wears out its welcome before its completed. Still undeniably solid. "Soulstealer" is yet another great energetic track that fits into the mid-tempo hard rockin category. Up front and solid guitar riffing whips this one out in a nice package. Very listeanble and quite good.

The title track is one of those nicely melodic free spirited tunes, with an open, roomy sound and very accessible overall. "Hold On" dabbles more in the bluesy sound, and borders between ballad and mid-tempo tune. With some fixing up this could be a killer power ballad track. "Come Hell Or Highwater" is more Pretty Maids-ish material that would have sounded quite comfortable on any of their last few albums. Another one that's not remarkable but its not bad. In fact, alot of this album falls into the trap of being a pleasant listen but nothing particularly spectacular. The track "Love and Devotion" pops between acoustic sections, where you can catch hints of Robert Plant in the vocals, heavier rockin sections, a building bridge, and a decent chorus similiar to others found on the album. "Coming Home" is a hard rocker, more bits of Plant-ed vocals, yet the song is pretty blah. It doesn't really feel glued together enough, it strays too far and too often to come together. The rest of the album can be written off like "Coming Home", decent material but boring to listen to, and what "Road of Desire" could have really used was to end on a big bang, but instead it goes out on a pathetic wimper with the acoustic crap throwaway track "Endless Dream".