Maybe you don't know anything about the band that was Scheer. But maybe, you have already seen the cover of their first album Infliction (1996), during one of your second hand CD store tour on Wednesday afternoon, the one with that close up on a badly stitched up scar. Does it ring a bell to anyone ? Anyway, their alternative pop metal music, along with this morbid / aesthetic atmosphere, had always impressed me but the lack of the necessary promotion thing (magazines, tours…) made me forget them progressively. And the reason why there was nobody on the phone is simply that the band split in 1998. This album is a posthumous release which was made possible thanks to the numerous demands posted to their mailing list and web site. 

…And finally collects 14 songs which are in keeping with the dark spirit which they had exposed in the first album. Deadly Serious, 6 am and The Healer are aggressive reminders of their debut album which are erected upon an amazing drumming and a refined composition. Audrey Gallagher has a impressive range of singing, from a soft slow pop whisper to a metallian scream in the same song. Unfortunately, the energy cools off too much rapidly as the band shuts itself in a monotonous chain of ballads, still tainted with original rock accents and still carried by that wonderful voice, but it becomes hard to keep up to it during the remaining minutes of the album. 

Scheer has been fortunate enough to grow up in a remote village in Northern Ireland, the result being that the band has fashioned a harsh individual sound you may be interesting in, if you are sick of the Cranberries and of everything from Great Britain.

-Angus Anderson

/sept  15th 2002/