Rock and roll is dead,” says the voice at the start of “Heir To The Throne.” What follows is basically a middle finger to the idea.
That’s always been the case with Sweet Electric.
Lest we forget Brad Marr, when he was the singer in Melbourne’s Massive—who should have been, well, massive (if you’ll excuse the clanging pun)—he liked it over in Europe so much that he moved over.
When that band imploded before the pandemic, he moved to Germany, and Sweet Electric was born.
A couple of years after their first single (the aforementioned “….Throne”), they are here with their debut album.
It is immediately clear from “Leading The Blind” that this is possibly a little more mellifluous than what Marr had done before, but even more importantly, guitarists Mike Schneider and Michi Krol are a sensational double act—one with a sneer on their faces but a boogie in their hearts.
I’m prepared to bet that SE are a mighty proposition live too. “Hey Kid” is obviously made for stages—and if that one is perhaps a little more like Massive, then “Killer Katharina” proves that Marr can roar like any classic rock great. They have a knack for making choruses infectious too.
“Hard Times” has clearly heard its share of AC/DC, but let’s be honest here, there are worse hard rock groups you could borrow from.
“Living It Up” is funky fun—sort of like Extreme playing in a dive bar. But if you were looking for proof that this is a riff-based rocker at its heart, then “Piece Of The Pie,” a critique of 2024, is all you need to know.
That said, there are more strings to their bow than that. “Holy Water” is neither the Southern Rock thing I’d assumed nor the ballad it might have been, instead coming on as expansive and ambitious.
Both of those words could apply to the album as a whole, as they basically go full-on Aerosmith for the change of pace that is “Sober,” on which Marr goes for a kind of stream-of-consciousness approach as he empties his soul. At over seven minutes in length, it is comfortably the album’s most epic moment, as well as being one of its best.
Frequently, the five-piece writes things that are at once familiar and fresh. The groovy closing track, “Monsters,” is one of those moments—and the gear change in the bridge before the solo is an absolute cracker.
In the notes they sent with “The Monsters Are Rising,” they said this: “The album is 41 minutes of action-packed retro rock ‘n’ roll.”
That’s true, of course, but it also needs to be said that Sweet Electric is selling itself short.
It sounds classic, yes, maybe even retro, but most of all, it sounds fresh. As debut albums go, it points to a band on the rise.
Rating: 8.5/10
REVIEW: SWEET ELECTRIC – THE MONSTERS ARE RISING (2024)
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