Watch the melodic rock fire
W.E.T. - Earthrage
W.E.T. - Earthrage
In 2009 W.E.T., featuring the talents of noted and respected American rock vocalist Jeff Scott Soto (Yngwie Malmsteen, Talisman, Soul SirkUS, Journey, Tran-Siberian Orchestra Soto, Sons of Apollo, among others) and Swedish melodic rock maestros, keyboardist Robert Säll (Work Of Art) and Eclipse front man Erik Mårtensson (guitar, vocals, bass, keyboards) produced not just an outstanding contemporary hard melodic rock album but, with 'One Love,' a contender for air punching, hard melodic rock song that year (or any year of the noughties).
With 'Watch The Fire,' the feisty and anthemic track that opens the band’s third studio album, Earthrage, they’ve caught bristling, high-energy musical lightning in a melodically rocking bottle once again; a hook-laden yet angry-edged hard melodic monster of a tune, it’s clearly a challenger for hard melodic rock song of 2018.
Nor does it hurt that the lyric is open to listener interpretation; the lyric could be a "karma’s a bitch" retort to personal hurt or a larger, global outcry against the powers that be who will, hopefully, eventually get theirs:
"One day you’re gonna beg on your broken knees, one day you’re gonna face all your enemies...
and I will be there – watch the fire burn!"
It’s a smokin’ hot song in more ways than one.
But any worries that Earthrage is based around the gravitas of one song is put to bed as the album progresses.
The rocking 'Burn,' built on the big, meaty beats of drummer Robban Bäck, is the perfect track sequencing sequel to 'Watch the Fire' while 'Kings On Thunder Road' is hook-laden harmonies and power rock for the highway.
'Elegantly Wasted' then offers a change of pace through Jeff Scott Soto’s more staid but perfectly weighted vocal and Robert Säll’s keyboards before the song builds to a fuller sounding, traditional-for-the-genre power ballad (similarly the lighter but purposeful 'Heart is on the Line,' complete with obligatory "whoa-oh-oh" outros – get your outstretched arms and backlit iPhones up in the air, melodic rock lovers).
The riff-driven attack of 'Urgent' returns to the harder-edged and contemporary sound that helps define W.E.T. While the song differs from Foreigner’s classic of the same name there is no denying the similarity in sonic punch and intensity; 'Urgent' also features a guitar solo from guest player Thomas Larsson, adding to the six-string weight that’s supplied throughout Earthrage by featured guitarist Magnus Henriksson (Erik Mårtensson’s bandmate in Eclipse).
The pacey 'Dangerous' is top-notch melodic Euro rock and a song that dovetails perfectly with following number 'Calling Out Your Name;' the latter is a heavy AOR track with sing-a-long chorus harmonies and a fiery but fitting guitar solo.
Earthrage ends on a trio of numbers that showcase the band’s varying melodic and hard AOR styles.
The mid-tempo AOR of 'I Don’t Wanna Play That Game' (with a stylish, almost country Americana guitar solo) would have been a sure fire radio and chart hit back in the melodically rocking day while 'The Burning Pain of Love' slows the tempo ever-so-slightly but ups the volume a notch to deliver Earthrage's "Always by your side" number.
Album closer, the wonderfully titled 'The Never-ending Retraceable Dream,' is a Journey-eque romp across a melodic rock landscape that features the band’s penchant for earwormery choruses and, of course, those "whoa-oh-ohs."
The final track (and a number of others across the three W.E.T. studio albums thus far) gives serious rise to the question of is this how Journey would have sounded if they had decided to run with Jeff Scott Soto after he fronted the band on tour in 2006 instead of dropping him in favour of a return to their "legacy sound" (and effectively rewriting their own songbook with Revelation) with the hiring of Youtube find Arnel Pineda.
Earthrage comes at a point when the three main protagonists find themselves at prolific and creative high-points in their respective careers.
Last year Erik Mårtensson (whose production is another sonic high-point of the album) was part of an up-tempo slice of Euro power-rock & heavy AOR with the sixth Eclipse album, the muscly Monumentum. Mårtensson is also part of Ammunition, the band fronted by Norwegian vocalist Age Sten Nilsen (formerly of Wig-Wam); the self-titled second album was released at the top of 2018.
Jeff Scott Soto put his fully metalised jacket back on for his own band project S.O.TO. and brace of releases Inside The Vertigo (2015) and DIVAK (2016).
In 2017 he became the featured voice of progressive supergroup Sons Of Apollo (featuring Mike Portnoy, Billy Sheehan, Derek Sherinian, Ron "Bumblefoot" Thals and Soto) on debut album, Psychotic Symphony.
Robert Säll has just completed the production of a forthcoming release with vocalist Steve Overland of British melodic rockers FM; Säll is currently working on a new Work of Art album that should be completed later this year.
Good as all the above are, or sound, if this is what Messrs Mårtensson, Soto and Säll deliver collectively, long may their Earthrage.
Ross Muir
FabricationsHQ
With 'Watch The Fire,' the feisty and anthemic track that opens the band’s third studio album, Earthrage, they’ve caught bristling, high-energy musical lightning in a melodically rocking bottle once again; a hook-laden yet angry-edged hard melodic monster of a tune, it’s clearly a challenger for hard melodic rock song of 2018.
Nor does it hurt that the lyric is open to listener interpretation; the lyric could be a "karma’s a bitch" retort to personal hurt or a larger, global outcry against the powers that be who will, hopefully, eventually get theirs:
"One day you’re gonna beg on your broken knees, one day you’re gonna face all your enemies...
and I will be there – watch the fire burn!"
It’s a smokin’ hot song in more ways than one.
But any worries that Earthrage is based around the gravitas of one song is put to bed as the album progresses.
The rocking 'Burn,' built on the big, meaty beats of drummer Robban Bäck, is the perfect track sequencing sequel to 'Watch the Fire' while 'Kings On Thunder Road' is hook-laden harmonies and power rock for the highway.
'Elegantly Wasted' then offers a change of pace through Jeff Scott Soto’s more staid but perfectly weighted vocal and Robert Säll’s keyboards before the song builds to a fuller sounding, traditional-for-the-genre power ballad (similarly the lighter but purposeful 'Heart is on the Line,' complete with obligatory "whoa-oh-oh" outros – get your outstretched arms and backlit iPhones up in the air, melodic rock lovers).
The riff-driven attack of 'Urgent' returns to the harder-edged and contemporary sound that helps define W.E.T. While the song differs from Foreigner’s classic of the same name there is no denying the similarity in sonic punch and intensity; 'Urgent' also features a guitar solo from guest player Thomas Larsson, adding to the six-string weight that’s supplied throughout Earthrage by featured guitarist Magnus Henriksson (Erik Mårtensson’s bandmate in Eclipse).
The pacey 'Dangerous' is top-notch melodic Euro rock and a song that dovetails perfectly with following number 'Calling Out Your Name;' the latter is a heavy AOR track with sing-a-long chorus harmonies and a fiery but fitting guitar solo.
Earthrage ends on a trio of numbers that showcase the band’s varying melodic and hard AOR styles.
The mid-tempo AOR of 'I Don’t Wanna Play That Game' (with a stylish, almost country Americana guitar solo) would have been a sure fire radio and chart hit back in the melodically rocking day while 'The Burning Pain of Love' slows the tempo ever-so-slightly but ups the volume a notch to deliver Earthrage's "Always by your side" number.
Album closer, the wonderfully titled 'The Never-ending Retraceable Dream,' is a Journey-eque romp across a melodic rock landscape that features the band’s penchant for earwormery choruses and, of course, those "whoa-oh-ohs."
The final track (and a number of others across the three W.E.T. studio albums thus far) gives serious rise to the question of is this how Journey would have sounded if they had decided to run with Jeff Scott Soto after he fronted the band on tour in 2006 instead of dropping him in favour of a return to their "legacy sound" (and effectively rewriting their own songbook with Revelation) with the hiring of Youtube find Arnel Pineda.
Earthrage comes at a point when the three main protagonists find themselves at prolific and creative high-points in their respective careers.
Last year Erik Mårtensson (whose production is another sonic high-point of the album) was part of an up-tempo slice of Euro power-rock & heavy AOR with the sixth Eclipse album, the muscly Monumentum. Mårtensson is also part of Ammunition, the band fronted by Norwegian vocalist Age Sten Nilsen (formerly of Wig-Wam); the self-titled second album was released at the top of 2018.
Jeff Scott Soto put his fully metalised jacket back on for his own band project S.O.TO. and brace of releases Inside The Vertigo (2015) and DIVAK (2016).
In 2017 he became the featured voice of progressive supergroup Sons Of Apollo (featuring Mike Portnoy, Billy Sheehan, Derek Sherinian, Ron "Bumblefoot" Thals and Soto) on debut album, Psychotic Symphony.
Robert Säll has just completed the production of a forthcoming release with vocalist Steve Overland of British melodic rockers FM; Säll is currently working on a new Work of Art album that should be completed later this year.
Good as all the above are, or sound, if this is what Messrs Mårtensson, Soto and Säll deliver collectively, long may their Earthrage.
Ross Muir
FabricationsHQ