Eight (!) years after 'Kalashnik Love', Algerian oud-master Mehdi Haddab finally returns with a successor. For 'Big Blue Desert' he travelled to the Senegalese capital Dakar where he further explored his love for nineteen seventies heavy metal (opener 'Keep Going', 'Sixty Something'), resulting in the nine songs on this album sounding even sturdier than those on predecessor 'Kalashnik Love'. The Senegalese influences come most to forefront in 'The Warriors' with Pape Diouf on vocals, but if you prefer something more Oriental there's always the instrumental 'Orgasmocracy' or 'Desert Trip', with Hindi Zahra on vocals, and for 'Ocean Street', Haddab even seems to go disco. Whether you like his sound or not, about the fact Mehdi has taken his instrument into the twenty-first century one really can't argue.