Every year I make it my business to go and see Sweet play live.
Every year it’s the same thing. They play for 75 minutes. Knocking out banger after banger and its ace. I am like most people my age. We saw Wayne’s World in 1992 and we loved this song “Ballroom Blitz” sung by Tia Carrere. So, we investigated – or at least I did.
But time moves on – hell, even Tia is nearly 60 these days. And Sweet reckon this is their last album.
More to the point, “Full Circle” is not full of glam rock bangers with loads of questionable lyrics (after all, if you made a joke about trying to push Willy where Willy don’t go these days, you lose your job at the BBC…)
Instead, “Full Circle” is a classy hard rock effort that is not too far from the likes of FM. That much will be evident when you listen to the opener “Circus”. There’s a moment, a hint, of the old days in the solo, but mostly, it is about the skill of making modern-sounding rock like “Don’t Bring Me Water “ (which they played last December) or the more strident, but no less well put together AOR of “Burning Like A Falling Star”.
At the shows last Christmas, they played “Changes” too, and it’s easy to see why they liked that one so much. The chorus soars and Paul Manzi (ex-Cats In Space) is as good as it gets.
Indeed, they have a way of doing things that just sounds big. “Everything” is sort of a ballad, I suppose, but it has a grandiosity that brings to mind “Hysteria” era Def Leppard.
Then to start side two, in old money, anyway, it’s a real heads-down rocker. “Destination Hannover” needs to go in the set next time (main man Andy Scott often speaks of how big they are in Germany and it would fit right in) and that’s before “Rising Up” finds a kind of Foreigner vibe.
But there’s one thing you can’t ever argue about and it’s right there in the title of “Fire In My Heart”. It’s still what drives Scott, surely? And you could also say that this current lineup of the band – with Lee Small on bass, Tom Cory (who also produces with Scott) on guitar, and Adam Booth on drums) – might be their best in decades.
“Defender” is a proper ballad, with a twin solo straight out of the 70s, and the fact that there’s just a little mark of class about the whole thing is underlined yet again by “Coming Home”.
The title track is interesting too, for its prog rock overtones. They are unmistakable, even before Scott’s spoken word passage to finish. He talks about the journey of life and adds: “where it stops is where it ends.”
And after 55 million records and 34 number ones, this is meant to be the last one. If it is, then it’s a fitting epitaph because it is modern and has plenty to say.
That said, Motley Crue said they’d never tour again, just saying….
Rating 8/10
