Face Your Fears

Face Your Fears, released on 17 February 2023, is the fifth album. The personnel are renewed here too: Marco Pastorino on guitar, Michele Guaitoli on bass and additional guitar, Marco Andreetto on drums. Guaitoli sings in Visions of Atlantis and Temperance, and here he stands at the centre of the making as Harry Hess's foil. The sound got distinctly heavier here. Racing guitars and double bass drums line up, and Harem Scarem listeners may be thrown at first. There are two reasons: the colour of Frontiers, a Europe-centred label, and the fact that the centre of melodic rock now lies in Europe rather than America. Hard songs run from the opening “Unbreakable” through “Situation Critical” and “Shoot the Bullet”; “Rain for Your Roses” catches the breath, and “Never Be Silenced” closes the eleven. Yet the moment a chorus opens, that voice is still there, unchanged. Thirteen years from the 2010 start and across five albums, the only constant was, in the end, Harry Hess alone.