Albums of the Month
Our quarterly selection of top albums are based on GRTR! reviewer ratings.
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2024 Albums of the Month
Frontiers [Release date : 25.04.25]
Melodic Hard Rock heroes, Harem Scarem are back with their 16th album.
Harry Hess and Pete Lesperance still form the core of the band, with Creighton Doane and Mike Vassos providing a rock solid rhythm section.
Echoes of Mood Swings can be heard, not loud but clear, on opening and title track, ‘Chasing Euphoria’, and on first teaser track, ‘Better The Devil You Know’.
First album for five years. And we’re cranking the machine way back… if we listen hard enough, we will always hear those echoes, no matter the album. And they’ll always be welcome.
Some elements of the band’s current music can be challenging. Harry Hess’s voice has been roughed up and toughened in the post debut grind of continual live performance. Safe to say though, his power and range has never dimmed. And ornamented still by Pete Lesperance’s axework, which has apparently traded abandon for control.
No bad thing, just listen to satisfying arpeggios that open ‘Slow Burn’s carefully rationed riffs and transitions, all the time shadowing Hess’s rushing vocals. A guitarist with the technique, the tone and the sheer invention of a world class axeman, spinning a guitar solo into a perfectly calibrated measure of melodic music.
The layers of heaviosity they added to mid career albums have been removed. That doesn’t mean that Chasing Euphoria is in anyway lightweight. Lesperance hits a ringing guitar groove on ‘A Falling Knife’ and ‘Keep Your Head Up’, songs that allow backing singer, Darren Smith, a couple of moments in the frontman spotlight.
The album peaks with ‘World On Fire’ and ‘Reliving History’, both bringing together all the bands classic rock strengths on a pulsing mix of epic, rhythmic, melodic hard rock.
Unlike the recordings of other bands who are still around now, there’s nothing esoteric about Harems Scarem’s new music, it’s just a pleasurable celebration of all that’s great about melodic rock, coupled to a relentless drive to make it work. ****
Review by Brian McGowan
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