Deserted fear - My Empire (2012)

   Deserted Fear debuted in 2012 with "My Empire" and a couple of years later they became Germany's No.1 death metal band, and it's not difficult to see why. However, various components had to align to make this possible.

   It's one thing that "My Empire" was a stunning debut, and the band's timing and formation was also perfect, cause by the New Wave of Old School Death Metal more focus turned on the '90s extreme metal scene, and many bands were inspired by this tendency as well. At least in the underground, cause the mainstream scene seemed unaffected. And also this description could fit on many other young bands too, who started in the same style. But Deserted Fear's music was somehow easier to go into, and the same time the compromise-less intensity remained too. Basically they had Swedish death metal influences, that they've applied in a softer form, and quite catchy, melodic themes were involved to make their music sound more diverse compared to most other new death metal formations. By this step they didn't go too far (for now) to become a melodic death metal band, which usually means to lose nearly all death metal musical features. They preferred to keep them as main determining themes, while the melodic parts are more like completing elements. A few years later this combination proved to be enough impressive even for Century Media to write a contract with them, which is basically equal with breaking into the mainstream scene. At this point it might be interesting to note, that even though nowadays biggest metal labels like Century Media, Nuclear Blast or Earache Records have started to release extreme underground music, and many well known and lesser known cultic albums came out under their labels from the late '80s, they rarely offering a contract to similar bands nowadays. Their methodism in the hope for bigger profit drifted them further from the all-time underground scene, and probably they also grew too old to pay attention to the actual tendencies. However, Deserted Fear was one of the rare lucky exceptions, when the chance to grow big was given to a truly worthy band. Probably the only thing that keeps them away from wider success is that they're not willing to get their asses to play outside Germany (occasional gigs in Switzerland and Austria doesn't make much difference).