A well known saying admonishes us not to judge the book by it's cover, and the cover of "Don't Miss The Sunset" - a cheesy third-rate painting of a babe on a beach looking at a sunset - really is a god awful one (I'd give it a 3/10 or so), so it's doubly important for me as a reviewer to suspend my judgment. ODYSSEY DESPERADO are a Greek melodic rock band that was formed quite recently. There is not much that I can say about them other than that the producer of their debut also produced albums for more famous Greek acts FIREWIND and OUTLOUD. ODYSSEY DESPERADO are all about melody: catchy choruses, melodic guitar leads and an abundant use of synths. To me their sound is quite "retro", there is nothing in their music that would make me feel like their album was released this year and not in 1986. The nostalgia is strong with these guys.

I don't have any big complaints about the album, the songs and the album are fine. But before I say something about the album as a whole, let me get to the minor complaints first. Right off the start, the song "Rush of the Wave" is pretty underwhelming. It opens with cheesy sounding synths and "oooooh" acapellas, all this sounding like an intro to a VENGABOYS song (or some other 90s euro-disco atrocity). The guitar riff manages to clam me down from my alarmed state of mind, but then the verse comes in. Goddy, it's so anticlimactic: the singer is crooning over some basic synth riff and the whole thing sounds like it's played by a local wedding band. I understand the songwriting principle that you have to "go low" in the verse to be able to "go high" in the chorus, but "go low" shouldn't feel that underwhelming. The song picks up in the pre-chorus and the chorus is OK, but this song is a really bad first impression.

From here it can only get better, but this lack of taste in the arrangements of the songs is a problem that comes up throughout the album. There are good songs on this thing, for example "You And Me Against The World" has a catchy, upbeat chorus that gets stuck in your head, but even on the stronger cuts the songwriting is kind of bland. There is an insistence on repeating the choruses - milking the for all it's worth - until it gets annoying, just like in any garden-variety radio rock song. (I can't stomach this kind of songs especially when they end with a fade-out.) Also, don't tell me that the solo in "Dreams Die Hard" is good - it sucks, if you ask me. And don't get me started on the lyrics - they are all forgettable cheesy fluff ("Oooooh, follow your heart..." etc.), except the lines that are outright laughable ("I'm in love and the sea is my lover" just to give you a little taste).

There is a good variety of songs on this album - there are upbeat songs, indignant songs, power ballads, and all have good hooks, decent guitar playing, Manos Fatsis is a good singer. I don't want to diss this album, it's not as awful as the cover art, but I also can't praise it. The melodies and themes here feel rehashed, nothing sparks enthusiasm in me, some of it's cheesiness is hard for me to stomach. You could blame this on the incompatibility of taste, but I've heard (and reviewed) what I think are far superior Hard Rock albums this year (i.e. BONFIRE and REVERTIGO), so it's not like I can't appreciate a good Hard Rock album when I hear one. If you like BON JOVI, JOURNEY (or just 80s radio rock in general) maybe you will like this album more than me, but as far as I'm concerned you won't catch me bumping this album any time soon.