SAHARA RAIN - Sand In Your Hands (2010)

Sahara Rain is a Swiss six-piece including two lead guitars: Dave Silhanek and Adi Honegger.
As individuals all the band members (Ricci Domenico on vocals, Bo Rebsamen on keyboards, Boet Dee Haas on bass and Levent Suni on drums, in addition to the two guitarists) have years of experience behind them and they are putting it to extraordinarily good use in this great melodic hard rock debut.
Throw in Michael Bormann (JADED HEART) on backing vocals, production duties and with a hand in the songwriting and you really have an album that can do no wrong.

Ricci has a terrific vocal range and conveys a genuine passion in his singing.
I've seen reviews comparing him to Jon bon Jovi, but also I can hear a bit of a Joe Elliott sound in his voice. Whatever, he's exceptional.
The harmonisation of the backing vocals (Ricci and Bormann) is fabulous, almost choral in places.
Rebsamen's keyboards are ethereal in places, more straightforwardly melodic in others such as carrying the melody line for the intro to the superb track "Black Gold".

"Jungle" opens with heavier sounding guitars but then reverts to the melodic hard rock style. They manage this without it sounding like a screeching about turn.
"Higher Sky" is an emotional ballad, perfectly crafted, sounding a lot like BONFIRE.
"The Dance" makes use of minor chords in the chorus to give it a slightly unsettled edge by not taking the line you would expect of such a catchy track.
The middle eastern flavor on "Feels Like" and "Shadow" shows very clear that you're dealing with something more than the 'run of the mill' melodic hard rock offerings out there.

2nd press due to the public demand, this is one of the best debut albums lately appeared in the european melodic hard rock scene.


01 - Feels Like
02 - Black Gold
03 - Jungle
04 - Higher Sky
05 - The Dance
06 - Shadow
07 - Center Of Pain
08 - Blinded Eyes
09 - Be The Men You Are
10 - With These Hands


Ricci Domenico - vocals, backing vocals
Dave Silhanek - guitars
Adi Honegger - guitars
Bo Rebsamen - keyboards
Boet Dee Haas - bass
Levent Suni - drums
Michael Bormann - backing vocals, producer