Harry sounds great, but the music's lacking...It is hard to believe it has been 2 years since Harem Scarem hung it up. With the way their schedule had been, 2010 would have been the year for a new CD. Unfortunately Harem Scarem is gone, and have vowed not to come back, but with the emergence of a new project called First Signal, there may be some hope to bring back that classic HS sound. First Signal is the welcomed return of vocalist Harry Hess (Harem Scarem) to the hard rock world. It appears that First Signal is a project headed by bassist/producer Dennis Ward (Pink Cream 69) and the folks at Frontiers. Frontiers wanted to put out a release that hearkened back to the classic Harem sound, but with a twist, and that is exactly what we got.
First Signal's debut starts off with the energetic first single This City, which is an upbeat melodic rocker that has some elements of HS, but a little more polished. The tune is catchy, but nothing too spectacular. To boil it all down this CD, is full of catchy and melodic tunes, that lack the punchiness of Harem Scarem. From what I read, the goal was to bring back the Mood Swings era HS sound, but unfortunately they missed the mark, and come off sounding more like Journey than HS. Had the songs, been heavier and edgier then they might of achieved their goal. Don't get me wrong, there are some cool tracks on the CD like, Part of Me and Naked Desire, which sound like they could have come off a Pink Cream record. These two tracks have a dark vibe to them and are heavier than most of the other tracks on the CD.
This is not a bad CD and maybe I have been a little too critical, but I was expecting more than what I got. The brightest part of this CD is the return of Harry Hess. Harry sounds amazing on this release as well as the other studio musicians that participated in this project. The songs are played well and written well, but they are missing that umph factor. The songs are catchy and poppy, and do lend to the HS sound, but only because Hess was involved. If you want to compare this to a Harem Scarem CD, then the closes comparison, would be to their self titled first album.
Bottom Line: Harry Hess is back and sounding amazing as usual on a CD that might have been better had it been a band project rather than just a bunch of studio musicians getting together to crank out a CD. If you're not aware, one of the biggest disappointments about this project is that all of the material was written by outside writers.
Standout Tracks: Naked Desire, Part of Me, Crazy and First Signal
- Ragman was looking for just a little more