Harem Scarem - Big Bang Theory

So Blind 
Climb The Gate 
Reload 
Tables Turning 
Seas Of Dissension 
Sometimes I Wish 
Never Have It All 
Lying 
In My State Of Mind

Total Playing Time: 39:11 m:s

Review date: 28 Aug 1998

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After the Believe release, my opinion of HS was that I thought it should be possible for HS to find some way of combinating the sounds from the first 3 albums to give them something to move forward with, but that Believe wasn't the right combination. To be honest, I thought it more likely that the band would be back with more VOR-type material on this new album and that my days as a HS fan were numbered. 

The good news is that I think HS have found that right combination. To a certain extent the band have returned to the sound of Mood Swings, but this doesn't feel like a retrograde step for the band. The majority of the songs on BBT could easily fit on Mood Swings II, if the band had decided that was what they wanted to do. If they had gone into the studio with a 80s hard rock attitude, MS II would have been the result. But, thankfully, the band have avoided repeated themselves. Instead of going for a depressing 90's sound, as they did on VOR, the band have taken a few of the elements from 90s music and blended it with the basic HS sound. We get the melodic hard rock & the great vocals, but delievered with a minimum of fuss and lots of raw enthusiasm. What I mean is that they still retain the basic HS sound developed on the first couple of albums, but with an up to date delivery that keeps in mind that we're in the 90's rather than fully embracing the whole 90's sound. This is AOR/hard rock for the 90s. 

The majority of  the songs are uptempo, with the final track, In My State Of Mind, being a ballad. Tables Turning is a remix of one of the studio tracks on the Live At The Siren album. Sometimes I Wish sees Harry Hess taking a back seat and letting bass player Barry Donaghy handle lead vocals, which he does well. Never Have It All shows a heavy Queen influence. Other than those few notes, there isn't much else I can say about individual tracks, except that there isn't any 'filler' material on here. Based solely on the music, this album would be getting a 9 rating. 

This album doesn't even make it to the 40 min mark, instead we get a 'free' poster of the band (wow!, not). If we take into account that may fans already have Tables Turning on the live album, that makes just about 35 min of new tunes!!! In the end there were 3 versions of the Believe/Karma Cleansing album. I jumped in with the first (Japanese) release, and I've been told that the third (Special Edition remix) version is much better. Instead of learning a valuable lesson, I did the same thing again on BBT. The difference this time is that time I reckon that whatever version of BBT you buy, you'll enjoy it. Trouble is, I'm sure the Canadian release of this will have a different track listing, so there are extra tracks out there which should have been included here. Big Bang Theory might not get top marks in the "Value For Money" category, but, musically, it is a good album and easily beats both VOR and Believe. In the space of a few weeks, I've probably already played this more times than VOR and Believe combined. I had no option but to knock down the final rating to reflect the poor VFM.