### Human Desolation: Project wasteland

#### 18/01/11 || revenant

Damn it to hell, I’ve got an extreme case of writer’s block today, this into just isn’t coming to me. Fuck it then, let’s let Human Desolation introduce themselves:

“The psychology behind self inflicted desolation is, for a minority of people, an exhaustive and overwhelming feeling of being left on your own, forsaken by only ones thoughts of the surrounding elements of destruction. This leads to the true art of complete self destruction…”

Ummm… right. So we all got that? These guys are into self flagellation. So what else can they tell us about themselves?

“Formed in Stockholm 2008, by competent and experienced musicians with very different backgrounds and skills.”

Ah excellent, they have different skills, for a second there I was afraid they would all play the same instrument. But the music, what do these guys play?

“With a vision to perform aggressive and expressive music, Human Desolation plays metal – not belonging to one simple subgenre.”

Whoah, hold on there guys. I have to take issue with this whole “not belonging to one simple sub genre” business, which is absolutely false. The Lord himself decreed the name of the simple subgenre you belong to: the new wave of American plague metal. Let’s do a quick sense check: metal core riffs? Check. Harsh vocals interspersed with clean vocals for choruses? Fucking check. Killswitch Engage cover? Yep, that’s the sealer, this is fucking metalcore.

“Project Wasteland” is Human Desolation’s second demo release, comprising of five songs in all. Tracks 1, 2, 4 & 5 follow the above said formula. The clean vocal choruses are appalling, the singing is sub-par and if were to give these guys advice I’d tell them to ditch these choruses or get a proper fucken singer in to do them. Track 3 (Until I…) is a much better song with some interesting ideas, but ones which are sadly not developed upon. This song is definitely the highlight of this release for me.

Metalcore has never been a genre I’ve been fond of, and mediocre metalcore less so. There is some talent here, it’s just a shame they have chosen a dull and shitty style of music to play. If they lose the crappy clean vocal choruses and focus on creating more interesting music, I might give them another chance. Until then…

- Information
- Released: 2010
- Website: Human Desolation MySpace
- Band
- Kristian Reunanen: vocals
- Fredrik Danielsson: guitars
- Fredrik Iggfors: guitars
- David Green: bass
- Miika Makomaki: drums

- Tracklist
- 01. Pandemic nation
- 02. Phenomena
- 03. Until I…
- 04. Serum
- 05. Fixation on the Darkness (Killswitch Engage cover)