Stephen
After the first two monster albums, HAREM SCAREM did an extremely risky experiment with 'Voice of Reason'. Combining the grungy era of 1995 with symphonic element of QUEEN and dark-oriented hard rock riffage, the result is a very contradictive output than the earlier records that alienates many melodic rock fans. To me personally, this is among my least-fave albums but not necessarily bad by any means.
I rarely pull this out of the shelf for some spins because the inconsistency of songs quality and you're required to have a certain mood to really enjoy the whole album. There are many better songs in the first half than the second with the most notably goodies here are the mid-tempo ballad of 'Blue' and 'Let It Go'; the psychedelic tune with superb solos of 'Warming A Frozen Rose'; and 'Breathing Sand' with a struggling verse but splendid chorus.
On the second half, 'Candle' is great but I like the acoustical version better, which was featured as a bonus track in the Japanese release. 'Necessary Evil' is also nice, but tracks like 'The Paint Thins', 'I'll Be Brief', or the catastrophic 'Untouched' are quite awful. Pick up those great songs and combine it with their 'Live and Acoustic EP', and they possibly can have an awesome third release.
Measuring this album with those upper songs and the passable fillers, I arrived at 70%. Still a good album by a high-quality band, but not a good pick for starter though.