W.E.T - W.E.T (CD)

Melodic hard rock projects are nice and all, but sometimes the pieces just fall into place. W.E.T is a brilliant example. Jeff Scott Soto on vocals, Robert Säll (Work Of Art) on guitars and Eclipse’s Erik Mårtensson on bass, keyboards and backing vocals. The name comes from the members’ respective bands’ initials Work Of Art – Eclipse – Talisman och musically the band just about sounds like a combination of these (please note that there's also another Swedish band called W.E.T that have made three CDs... erhmmm). Guitar dominated, well-arranged hard rock where the choruses hit you like a ton of bricks. Ok, I shall admit it does almost get a bit too poppy for my delicate hard rock ears in “Brothers In Arms”, but if it’s good, it’s good! What I like about a lot of the tracks is that they can initially seem pretty timid, like “Comes Down Like Rain”, but suddenly there’s this driving heavy section with a flashing guitar solo, here signed Magnus Henriksson (Eclipse). One of my favourite tracks is the rocking “Put Your Money Where Your Mouth Is”, which reminds me a bit about Talisman. Here’s a bunch of really nice rockers where “Just Go” is another prime example. Even if the whole affair smells like a rotten skunk, I’m actually happy Soto didn’t end up in Journey-land. He has a way too personal voice not to use it in a more personal situation, as solo artist, or in a project like this. Here he also has no frames to have to adjust to and no preconceptions to have to live up to. Now that the Talisman saga sadly is at an end station, this band is a nice way to take the melodic rock into new grounds, with Jeff’s voice as the guiding light. Also worth mentioning is the excellent drummer Robert Bäck, whom I’ve had the pleasure of recording in the band BALLS and who is also the drummer of Eclipse. On a further note a DVD is included in the W.E.T package, featuring interiews with the band and probably the last videos with the late Marcel Jacob (R.I.P).

/Janne Stark

Genre: Melodic rock

Label: Frontiers

Year: 2009

Country: USA/Sweden