Customer Reviews

Essentials

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Having only heard the name Harem Scarem when this little gem passed by my gaze cheaply I jumped at the chance. There are a number of points for and against regarding this release.

Firstly the albums sequence is quite good, I've no real grounding in knowledge regarding this band or their commercial highs and lows. But the way the collection flows is nice and of course production values are no problem here.

The trick with this 90's band is that they seem set firmly in the soft end of the hard rock/metal genre. Sitting through this album wasn't unpleasant, but nothing really grabbed you at all. Musicianship wasn't pushed in your face and they are probably good enough musos, but absolutely nothing stands out much here. The vocals are adequate, but only the guitarist seems to have any drive.

The only track with bite here is Voices of Heaven, track 9. The rest, well the people who should buy this album would be fans of 21 Guns, Bad English or especially Journey. So if this sort of AOR is your bag, this is probably a disc for you and it could introduce you to a new band to love.

One snag with this release is that there are no liner notes to help the newcomer get to grips with the band. Overall, the toothlessness of the entire project, the limp overall psyche of the band - for my tastes this is only a two star release.

Lovers of AOR may well disagree with me however!