harsk - promise of a brave new world (2008)

i don't usually do demos. so guess why this one landed here? to everyone's big surprise, yes, because it was worth it.
one positive note about promise of a brave new world (and perhaps the most striking one) is without doubt the singer's voice (rarely this steady at such a young stage of a band), staying quite harsh from beginning to end, thus fitting perfectly the band's hard rock/heavy metal proposal. secondly, and about as important, none of the instruments ever overshadows the others. through that, harsk are able to keep the sound clean and very melodic throughout the whole recording.
the starting couple, "fight the beast" and the title track, are the heavy pair of the lot, soon giving way to a tightening and darkening of the sound. "end of me" has actually a double-faced structure, fading from a ballad-esque approach into faster tempos and a much darker atmosphere. "lazarus" brings in some even dimmer atmosphere, yet strongly supported by melody -- thus staying away from any possible doomy inclination.
a videoclip of "promise of a brave new world" is also featured on the demo. it's obviously nothing mind-blowing, being self-produced, but you can tell the guys have taken it all pretty seriously from the fact a professional hand clearly lies behind it.
harsk ("rancid" in norwegian) couldn't be farther from playing stale. they're good, skillful enough to play with confidence and quite a high degree of personality, but also down-to-earth enough not to let mere technicality prevail. their songwriting is clean, catchy enough to make an impression, and so is the mixing, resulting in an overall fresh and convincing sound.
to kind of close the circle, let me insist that these guys are worth a listen. it's not that often that you come across an exception (especially in the AOR/prog area) to the it-feels-like-i-heard-this-a-thousand-times-before rule. you can find out yourself at the band's official site, as they've made the demo available for download. a rare form of generosity you won't regret taking advantage of.

thus spake the cennsor: 7/10