NARNIA — Desert Land (review)

Album · 2001 · Power Metal

3/5 · 2022-07-24
lukretion

After two albums firmly rooted in the melodic neoclassical metal / hard rock camp, on their third full-length Narnia tried to mix things up a little, injecting a healthy dose of 1980s metal into their sound. As a consequence, Desert Land sounds heavier than the band’s previous two efforts, which were instead highly melodic hard rock affairs. This may or may not have been a reaction to the criticism the band received for the mellowness and lack of grit of their previous two records, or it could have been an attempt to ride the success of European power metal, a genre that enjoyed a significant commercial success at the turn of the century. Either way, it is a welcome turn of events for the band’s sound, which injects some freshness into a subgenre (that of neoclassical metal) that can easily grow stale and formulaic.

In this sense, the album’s most striking aspect, which is also its main strength, is the smooth variation of the songs in its tracklist. Fast, neoclassical tracks that evoke the spirit of Yngwie Malmsteen are alternated with beefier affairs, where the baroque guitar runs and harpsichord accompaniment are substituted with slow, twisty riffs that nod in doomy directions, halfway between Rainbow and Black Sabbath. Meanwhile, “Trapped in This Age” timidly ventures outside the rigid stylistic requirements of the power metal subgenre, with hints of progressive metal in the slightly more complex texture and multi-part structure. “Revolution of Mother Earth” is instead a more standard, piano-driven ballad, which nevertheless pleasantly surprises with its powerful melodies.

For the rest, Desert Land shows the same strengths and weaknesses as Narnia’s previous two albums. Carl Johan Grimmark is a great guitarist, whose playing is not a mere display of technical ability, but is rooted in a stronger idea of melody. Aside from the guitar, the spotlight also shines on Christian Liljegren’s beautiful vocals. He has a trained tenor voice with a rich vibrato that fits perfectly the songs’ majestic and poignant mood. His delivery on Desert Land is perhaps slightly grittier compared to Narnia’s previous records, reflecting the generally more aggressive and metallic style of the new album. The rest of the band is equally proficient, albeit the other instruments are mostly used in an accompanying role, letting Grimmark’s guitar take centre stage, as per the genre’s stylistic requirements. Especially Martin Claesson’s keyboards play a far less prominent role in the arrangements than they had in Narnia’s previous album, Long Live the King. This is a pity since his keyboard parts had been one of the highlights of that record. The emphasis on the guitar makes the arrangements a bit skimpy and predictable, an impression that is reinforced by the album’s limited dynamic range and the fairly formulaic songwriting, trapped in an endless cycle of verse, prechorus and chorus in nearly all songs. However, part of these shortcomings come with the genre and are not specific to Narnia.

Overall, Desert Land is a good album that consolidates Narnia’s position as one of the most solid and proficient acts in the neoclassical metal genre. On this album the Swedes have tried to inject some variation in their usual neoclassical fare, adding more heaviness and aggression to their sound. The experiment is by and large successful, although it does not completely alter the fairly predictable and to a certain degree derivative essence of the band’s musical ideas.