Believe -Special Edition-

I love Harem Scarem and I own the original Believe so it was nice to this collection of remixes etc to my list.If you are a fan-this needs no intro.

Astonishgly I find myself the only reviewer for this awesome album on Amazon.co.uk. Why is this? Was this album so poorly recieved or is it just so hard to get in the UK? Either way, what we have here is Harem Scarem maintaining their consistently high level of quality tunes that seems to have been missed off their list of 'bands greatest moments'. If you can afford to buy this album and you're a Harem Scarem fan, I would definately recommend it!It didn't take me long to get into this album, but after a short time I started to feel a bit unsatisfied and disapointed after listening to it. It took me a while to realise that possibly the main reason I wasn't feeling it was because it finishes on a serious low. If you check out the song list on the special addition (which I think is about the only version you can get these days) you'll see that the last two or three tracks are B-sides and not included in the original release. They're not terrible songs, but for me the tracks are just a little bit annoying and finish the album on a real low note. Up until these songs, the quality of song writing is excellent but as everybody knows, its so important for any album that calls itself a classic to save a small collection of its best songs until the end to finish on a high note.Apart from this small drawback, the rest of the album truely rocks and finds a more steady ground in between the more pop rocky first album and the almost prog rocky mood swings. The production and mixing sounds great on believe, with just the vocals needing to be a little more prominent. As usual there's a good mix of ballards and heavy rockers with a funky instrumental in the first half showing a more unrestrained Pete Lesperance than in the rest of the album. For any non Harem Scarem fan I would recommend starting with their debut album or 'Hope' to ease into their style, but I would say that this is a must have for any fan that doesn't already own this.Harem Scarem are one of the few bands that have battled against the changing tides by staying together and not compromising on their style. Whilst not a huge name in rock history I belive that the music they've produced has proven time and time again that they are all uniquely brilliant musicians, songwriters and benchmarkers in the world of power rock that is slowly but surely coming back round into fashion.