Label: Frontiers Music Srl.
Release date: 06.03.2020
Production: Harry Hess
Album length: 44.00 min
Genre: Melodic Rock
Rating: 8.0 / 10
Harem Scarem are long-running Canadian melodic hard rockers who have been on the scene since 1987. Between 2008 and 2013 they took a five-year break. They actually announced an official retirement, which was then called off. In recent years the band has been under the wing of the Italian label Frontiers Music Srl., and that’s a very good thing, since the group’s new music has been getting to European fans and presented to them far better ever since.
After the band reactivated in 2013, they first re-recorded and released their cult album “Mood Swings” for the label mentioned above, renaming it “Mood Swings II.” for the occasion, and then, hugely inspired, put out two excellent new studio albums, “Thirteen” (2014) and “United” (2017).
Early in their career the band released two excellent albums, the debut “Harem Scarem” followed by “Mood Swings”, but then the urge to adapt their sound and style slowly swallowed them up and dumped them into oblivion. Only in 2002, with the album “Weight Of The World”, did they remember their roots again and somehow get back on the old musical tracks that Harem Scarem still stick to diligently today. And that’s a good thing. The new album “Change the Wolrd” doesn’t surprise anymore, to be fair. It’s exactly what you’d expect from Harem Scarem, an album that follows on, in energy and style, from its predecessor “United”, and the aura of the nostalgic “Mood Swings” days is present at every step. For any fan of the band that’s enough, because it’s the one thing that matters to them, and it guarantees they’ll love the new album too.
Harry Hess and Pete Lesperance remain the driving force of the band even in its mature years. This partnership is basically the fundamental guarantee that the whole Harem Scarem machine keeps running so well. This songwriting duo simply can’t and won’t let you down. This time they wrote the material separately, each on their own end, then got together and tested how all the ideas worked together. The result is twelve new songs that are just the right length (between 3 and 4 minutes), and the album runs under three quarters of an hour. Still, not all the songs are equally gripping. Harem Scarem are walking some well-trodden paths this time, and the closing Swallowed By the Machine and the slow Mother Of Invention, which goes nowhere, come off a bit “cheesy”. The multiple repeats of the chorus in Searching Of Meaning can also gnaw at you a little. The band obviously liked it so much that they wanted to play it on and on forever. But never mind, because the content is still, by a big margin, very, very good and up to the standard of any good Harem Scarem album. After the high-vibrating, pomp-soaked title track that opens the album, the highlights this time are the songs with a slightly darker streak: Aftershock, which comes right after it, and especially the excellent single The Death Of Me (easily the best song on the album), plus the melancholic, bluesy No Man’s Land, or the sensitive ballad No Man Without You, and then the stripped-down rocker Riot In My Head with Pete Lesperance’s sharp, incredibly inventive classic riff. Fire & Gasoline pours more oil on the fire in that regard, with Harry Hess surprising us by taking the vocal lines lower. The band has once again decked out the songs with theatrical vocal multi-harmonies, taken care of by Darren James Smith, who also helps out the band live now and then on drums.
Played at the top of their game again. Hess’s vocal power isn’t fading, and Lesperance proves once more that he’s a devilishly well-oiled guitarist when it comes to bringing a signature riff into a song and unleashing a venomous solo that gives you goosebumps and makes your eyes pop. Classic approach to arranging! The atmospheric peaks come in the chorus melodies, which grab you on the first listen. The production is excellent as always. The building blocks of the sound are perfectly placed, and a touch of liveliness and organic feel is clearly present and noticeable throughout.
Melodic rock fans who love the band will definitely want this album at home. As their fifteenth studio effort overall, it once again delivers the musical substance we’re used to from the band and guarantees excellence in the melodic rock genre. Simple as that. Harem Scarem today stand in a class of their own among bands in the same genre, quality-wise. Experience, talent, know-how, inspiration! It all adds up every time into a perfect melodic rock cumulus!
author: Aleš Podbrežnik
Track list:
1. Change The World
2. Aftershock
3. Searching For Meaning
4. The Death Of Me
5. Mother Of Invention
6. No Man’s Land
7. In The Unknown
8. Riot In My Head
9. No Me Without You
10. Fire & Gasoline
11. Swallowed By The Machine
Line-up:
Harry Hess – vocals, keyboards, backing vocals
Pete Lesperance – guitar
Creighton Doane – drums
Darren Smith – backing vocals
