Sweat aren’t your usual 20’s Rock outfit. Indeed the sheer weight of the 70’s Rock influences that pervades music these days normally side steps Prog or goes all-in. Sweat somehow manages to take onboard a fair sized portion of Prog without ridiculous excess or over-expansiveness. It really works, and whilst some are touting names like Deep Purple and Moody Blues when describing their sound I get just as much Heart, Jethro Tull and The Who in there.
Tee Pee Records release of ‘Who Do They Think They Are?’, the debut album from Pittsburgh-based Swiss-American quartet Sweat, in short, is well-worth exploration.
Opener ‘Errors’ is a great exposition of their sound – coming on like The Who then Heart then something altogether funkier and driving. It’s followed by ‘Convenient Bird’ which is a more West Coast affair, effectively channeling Jefferson Airplane. It’s heady stuff.
Single ‘Jane’ is great high energy and cranked guitars and played pretty straight with overtones of Purple in the title of the album, those influences seep in here and sharing a title with the Jefferson Starship song there are also elements of that previous incarnation in the mix.
‘Ice Cream Man’ interestingly opens with a light jangle of guitars and keys and some rather folky vocals before gathering some Prog-like steam and meandering into a 70’s Pop Rock chorus that sports a rather odd refrain “I want to be cool just like you Ice Cream Man” It’s a strange song and even stranger that it works!
‘Paradise’ is a nice flighty rocker that really hits the groove and set against the swelling ‘Dark Horses (White Lies)’ in which vocalist/organist Sue Pedrazzi again has that West Coast/Glace Slick feel are a great combination. It’s an invitation back to simpler times and less complex and overwhelming sounds that garner all the more power because of that directness.
‘Running Around’ has a more ‘garage’ almost East Coast Punk element but still that warm 70’s sound; whilst ‘My Side of the Mountain’ the longest song here by some way (almost clocking five minutes) and a delicate acoustic number to begin before the wonderful meandering almost ‘Hendrixy’ solo kicks in and the song soars. It’s just what you want at this point – opening the doors of possibility as it does. It would have been the perfect closer. Instead there is a 0.54 second snatch of humming, acoustic and footsteps to close. It adds little unlike the 1.01 ‘Lament’ which opened and at least set things up, making just eight real songs on the record you feel needed just a little more.
With Pedrazzi at the helm ably backed by Richard Stanley (Rich the Band), Dan Hernandez (Limousine Beach, Cruces) and Kayla Schureman (Century III) I can see these guys making even more magic in the future. ‘Who Do They Think They Are?’ is released 26th May on Tee Pee Records | Pre-order HERE
8.5 / 10