I’m always up to listening to a debut album and when I saw that the influences were 70s rock and prog, I was even more interested. The result is an up-to-date take on that era and not just a rehash. I need not have worried because Pittsburgh-based, Swiss-American quartet, Sweat gives us plenty of flavours from Purple to Tull via Heart and late 60s British rock.
Band members Sue Pedrazzi (who is the Swiss connection,) Richard Stanley (Rich the Band), Dan Hernandez (Limousine Beach) and Kayla Schureman (Century III) combine to deliver a broad sonic canvas on this debut called Who Do They Think They Are?.
A one-minute pleasurable intro calmly builds to the Hammond explosion of the first track proper, ‘Errors’. Think Boston with a female vocalist of power and subtlety (and no helium) but then it hits a funk-driven midsection with some very tasty guitar playing that perfectly captures a retro ES355 sound.
‘Jane’ adds a little more weight as this many-layered song unfolds, imagine members of Purple doing sessions with Jefferson Airplane as they trade Psyche with heavy rock and a cracking guitar solo too. ‘Ice Cream Man’ fascinates as it opens almost folk-like and adds a hint of prog before wrapping it in quality pop/rock that we know and love from the 70s.
‘Paradise’ brings Heepy prog; ‘Dark Horses (White Lies)’ is a perfect, modern take on late 60s rock; ‘Running Around’ brings a hint of Blondie-like punk and the album (excluding sub-one-minute mediaeval closer ‘Into The Lake’) comes to a solid conclusion with ‘My Side of the Mountain’ which starts with gentle acoustic and vocals before the electric kicks in with a clever riff and solo before going all Heepy again and deliciously so.
This is a very carefully crafted work with eight tracks of quality rock with nods to the 60s and 70s for sure but it is refreshingly original within that framework and I hope they garner sufficient backing to explore their obvious chemistry further as I am convinced the next album will be even better.
Who Do They Think They Are/ is out on 26th May via Tee Pee Records.
