SAHARA RAIN - review added 25th November 2009

Album Review: Sand In Your Hands (2009)

For fans of: Hard Rock... and humping camels

SAHARA RAIN - review added 25th November 2009

Album Review: Sand In Your Hands (2009)

For fans of: Hard Rock... and humping camels

Sand In You Hands actually came out at the start of 2009, but it's only now that we've had chance to catch up with it.

Sahara Rain comes from Zurich, Switzerland. No, it's not exactly the first place you think of when hard rock comes to mind. On this evidence, maybe Sahara Rain could change that.

The band - Ricci on vocals, Dave Silhanek and Adrian Honegger on guitar, Levent Sunu on drums, Bo Rebsamen on keys, and Boet De Haason bass - play a tuneful, hard hitting music mixing atmospheric harmonizing into fanciful musicianship. The sound is forceful and laid back at once. It's like being hit by a cannon mounted in an armchair.

The star of the show is Ricci with his characterful vocalising. He's somewhere between Ronnie James Dio, Lemmy, Michael Bormann and Jon Bon Jovi. He has a great tone with a powerful volume of emotion bubbling beneath the surface. He has got to be one of the best singers I've heard this year who isn't signed to a label. The same goes for the rest of the band. Somebody needs to snap these guys up.

There's a good reason for the Michael Bormann-isms throughout the album. Sand In You Hands was actually produced and engineered by him. The quality of the former Jaded Heartgob-meister is all too apparent. There isn't a duff track on the album - far from it - although 'Feels Like', the utterly superb 'Black Gold' and the epic 'Be The Man You Are' are a step above the others.

Downsides? The cover art is a bit cack...but that's about all.

Yeah, fine album this. Sahara Rain have another one on the way out next year. In the mean time, you won't go too far wrong buying this as a warm-up :)

Check out... 'Black Gold'