Very few new(-ish) rock bands actually manage to excite me, as many young bands these days tend to overthink their productions and arrangements instead of just going for the jugular. Fortunately, bands like The Damned Few pop up every once in a while, proving that it’s still perfectly possible to create some musical depth without forsaking the raw energy that hard rocking music is supposed to have. After their excellent 2021 EP ‘Black Blooded Woman’ drew my attention towards the Dutch quartet, their debut full-length ‘Karabasan’ is pretty much exactly what I would have wanted it to be.

While the excellent vocals of Dion Legebeke will probably be The Damned Few’s main attraction for many, the riffs and excellent sense of dynamics the rest of the band offer definitely help her shine. Michiel Jansen’s riffs occupy the middle ground between the rough and filthy rock ‘n’ roll of Guns N’ Roses’ earliest material, the unconventional approach to stoner rock of Queens of the Stone Age and the heaviest, most metallic of the nineties grunge bands. Bassist Jaap Schrijver and drummer Jeroen Hobert are a formidable rhythm section with a great sense of just how hard a song needs to be pushed.

Another thing that sets The Damned Few apart from their peers is how they manage to take their core sound in different directions without ever losing track of what it is that makes them a good band in the first place. ‘Karabasan’ ranges from the early stoner rock meets Led Zeppelin feel of epic closing track ‘Soul’ to the unconventionally structured power ballad ‘Someday’ and the back-to-back in-your-face punky hardrockers ‘Is It Love or Am I Sick?’ and ‘Break Up with Your Girlfriend’. However, because of Legebeke’s characteristic vocals, as well as the consistent band sound, ‘Karabasan’ never loses focus.

Of course, it helps that The Damned Few knows how to create songs that are loud and catchy at the same time. ‘Sinkhole’ is probably the perfect opener for the album, because it is the song that best exemplifies that. For all its beefy riffs, the vocals are actually quite understated, and its chorus surprisingly melancholic. The following ‘Feed Me to the Sun’ is probably my favorite song of the album, with its crushing riffs and its particularly intense chorus. ‘Til Death Do Us Part’ is an uncomplicated rocker that just works in its catchy unpretentiousness, and ‘Thrash Metal Disease’ lives up to its title in terms of energy, though not stylistically.

‘Karabasan’ is one of those albums that features a little bit of everything anyone into rock music would want to hear. There are huge riffs galore, the choruses beg to be shouted along, and the lyrics range from sincerely personal to delightfully tongue-in-cheek. At half an hour, ‘Karabasan’ also doesn’t outstay its welcome, though I suspect The Damned Few are good enough songwriters to have added one or two worthy tracks. The Damned Few was already one of the Netherlands’ most promising bands to me, and as a debut album, ‘Karabasan’ more than delivers on that promise.

Recommended tracks: ‘Feed Me to the Sun’, ‘Soul’, ‘Is It Love or Am I Sick?’