Harem Scarem
Hope

"Hope", full stop. This is how the Harem Scarem, a historical Canadian band never at the forefront of 90s/00s melodic hard rock, bid us farewell definitively in 2008, after beginnings in 1991 with the second wave of bands devoted to the combination of adult-oriented FM rock and heavy beats. 12 albums released. Despite all these records, the guys from Ontario have always remained in that cluster of groups that make up the numbers. The sum of their works confirms this trend with ups and downs, and "Hope" encapsulates in summary a life nonetheless dignifiedly dedicated to music. 3.5 precisely is my rating for the album.

An album produced by the genuine Frontiers - which in the new millennium seems to have shifted the melodic hr worldwide epicenter to Naples - "Hope" features melodies at times stellar and at times somewhat lost along the way. The musical assembly is in any case really very good primarily thanks to the production: the sound is muscular and robust, the drums a scourge for the eardrums, the guitars a monolith that rolls fluidly despite the riffs, sometimes risking twisting the six strings so technically articulated and, in some cases, superb they are. What brutally lowers the rating of this work is a fundamental part of the songs of this genre of music, precisely what makes the difference between success and failure: the choruses. Some are wonderful, new, and leave you incredulous, but most are not up to a high-level performance, and break the otherwise excellent rhythm phase of preparation. Limitations that, except for a few cases - such as the excellent Mood Swing -, have always marked their presence in every publication of these artists in the true sense of the term. They were capable of great things, as well as writing disinterested and sufficient themes, good only in form and not in substance.

Anyway, there's a lot on the plate in "Hope" that immediately begins to enchant with the metallic and introverted yet very catchy sound of "Watch Your Back", a track scoring 5 with guitars that open vaporously like nebulas, incredible bridges, and one of those choruses to write in the rock encyclopedia (the last attack starts suspended in the air and is the highest point of the song, very glamorous and decidedly 80s). The following "Time Bomb" is a lesson in technique that sets the standard and fully involves the listener, with highly complex riffs spreading red carpets before an excellent and masterful chorus. The best of the album, in my opinion, is all here. Then it inevitably starts to decline, and towards the end, there is even the risk of plummeting. The more listenable songs emerge calmly and at the limits of what the Boston housewife would enjoy while preparing lunch. I am talking about the title track, which here does not bring great luster to the album, and an excessively radio-friendly piece like "Days Are Numbered", which adds nothing and takes away nothing from the ballads of bands like Pink Cream 69. Among others worth mentioning, there are two more tracks that stand out and console those who spent money on this album: "Beyond Repair", which plunges the album back into its original dark aura, and "Shooting Star", which is the big ballad done right. The rest is indeed boredom and a collection of "already heard musical" that leaves one puzzled and somewhat bitter. Is it too strange to end a career with an E.P. of a few tracks to seal one's career with indelible ink?

I conclude with a consideration: talents like these are wasted. It might depend on who guided them in the recording studio or the managers. The fact remains that lesser bands, ending up in good hands, have gotten from life everything a hard rocker dreams of. Harem Scarem, on the other hand, had to be content with making albums like this, as eternal unfulfilled promises. A pat on the back for them. Until next time, for us.