Label: Frontiers Music Srl.
Release date: February 17, 2023
Production: Harry Hess & Michele Guaitoli
Album length: 43.47 min
Genre: Melodic Rock
Rating: 9.5/10
Harry Hess! The cult AOR veteran isn’t giving up! First Signal is a project that has held a steady course especially since 2016, when the album »One Step Over The Line« came out and Swedish producer and multi-instrumentalist Daniel Flores joined the fold. »Face Your Fears« is the follow-up to Closer To The Edge. The two came out just ten months apart, which is kind of insane, but there you go. It’s more than obvious that Frontiers Music Srl. has a real stake in this. Even Daniel Floers couldn’t keep up with that pace and stepped away from the project for the newest album, so the fantastic Canadian vocalist, producer, songwriter and frontman of the cult Canadian melodic rockers Harem Scarem, that is Harry Hess, was left completely on his own. Well, not really. On »Face Your Fears« he’s got a crew of well-seasoned Italian studio hired guns on the Frontiers Music Srl. payroll watching his back. A tried-and-tested team.
With the label pushing, Hess still found time for the project’s fifth album. »Face Your Fears« is a somewhat heavier record than its predecessors. Sharper. The guitar phrasing is more upfront in the production than you’d expect, and there’s absolutely nothing wrong with that. Hess certainly won’t release an album until he’s convinced everything’s spot on. Even if, in expressive terms, everything within the boundaries that define the genre was said a long time ago. What matters is that the music grabs you! And »Face Your Fears« definitely grabs you.
Despite the tight turnaround between the new album and its predecessor »Closer To The Edge«, the latest record keeps the project at the exact same level of quality as its otherwise excellent forerunner. Anthemic melodies that hook you the second you hit play. One after another. This kind of musical direction is more than friendly to fans of the cult Canadian melodic rockers Harem Scarem too. But since in hard rock and metal (usually) ‘it all rises and falls on the guitarists’ (artistically speaking), the gap between the two stays crystal clear. Hess is vocally flawless once again. Totally confident in his approach, which mixes gritty and clean singing. Especially in the choruses he really tightens up his vocal cords, and when he lifts his voice, the timbre occasionally recalls Kip Winger (Winger) or even Ronnie Atkins (Pretty Maids), but those are minor details. Rain For Your Roses is a great mid-tempo track that impresses in the chorus with crystal-clear vocals. A similar story repeats a bit later on the album with the (more modern-sounding) track Not This Time. Hess goes for clean vocals here again, and with its ‘aura’ this track touches the listener in its own special way compared to most of the album. As for the rest, the album as a whole runs downright brilliantly. From the first to the last second, with the lightning-fast opener Unbreakable followed by Situation Critical, not to mention the excellent single Shoot The Bullet at number 3. It’s one of the album’s hardest-hitting tracks, with an especially blissful chorus melody. A firecracker! The voltage never drops. The compositions are polished with the brilliance of perfectionism. In the second half, the title track adds an extra ‘momentum of high-pomp run-up’ to the record, and it’s surely one of the album’s most convincing cuts. It’s got no shortage of bubbling optimism.
Two names need to be singled out here. One is Michele Guaitoli, who has produced albums for ISSA, Visions Of Atlantis, Kalidia and SheWolf, among others, and who also sings with Visions Of Atlantis, Temperance and ERA. The other is his Temperance buddy and excellent guitarist Marco Pastorino, who shines with polished solo wizardry too. You’ve seen both of them if you caught Tarja Turunen’s concert at the start of this past March, where Temperance played as the opening act, or in Maribor at the end of the same month with Phantom Elite. It’s precisely this Guaitoli–Pastorino duo alongside Hess that pulls the new album a bit away from its predecessors, not just in vibe but in the very look of the songs. Ultra musical but more jagged and, well,… we can even say production-wise ‘metalized’. The fact that no ballad ‘stops’ the album adds to that feeling, since the first one, In The Name Of Love, only shows up right before the end.
Less than a year has passed since the release of its predecessor »Closer To The Edge«, and here we have the excellent fifth studio album from the project, which in that ten-month gap went through a change in the studio lineup. And that change got to the heart of it. Not only does it keep up the high quality the project’s name delivers, it also gives us a slightly different album that’s once again masterfully glued together.
One more thought, which isn’t exactly relevant but might amuse. About the cover. At first, innocent and imprecise glance, the guy on the cover looks like a shirtless Slovenian celebrity chef Bine Volčič in gladiator combat with two lions, and it’s not immediately clear whether he’s shaking hands with one of them.
Author: Aleš Podbrežnik
Track list:
1. Unbreakable
2. Situation Critical
3. Shoot The Bullet
4. Always Be There
5. Dominoes
6. Rain For Your Roses
7. Face Your Fears
8. Never Gonna Let You Go
9. Not This Time
10. In The Name Of Love
11. Never Be Silenced
Line-up:
Harry Hess – vocals
Marco Pastorino – guitar
Michele Guaitoli – bass, additional guitars
Marco Andreetto – drums
