Label: Frontiers Music Srl.
Release date: January 22, 2021
Production: W.E.T.
Album length: 41.45 min
Genre: Hard Rock
Rating: 9.0/10
Unlike plenty of today’s acts who, just like W.E.T., dabble in the territory of hard rock, melodic rock and AOR, W.E.T. put quality before quantity. “Retransmission” is only the band’s fourth studio album in 12 years, and once again they’ve managed to pick out a truly phenomenal selection of the best of the best.
The three main pillars of the band, Eric Mårtensson (Eclipse), Robert Säll (Work of Art) and of course the indestructible, diamond-voiced Jeff Scott Soto (Sons of Apollo, solo,…), are constantly tied up in all sorts of side projects and in the work of their home bands, so it’s pretty amazing that the great ideas just never, ever run dry. The main songwriters in W.E.T. are of course the wizardly Eric Mårtensson and Robert Säll, who also hold the artistic survival of their main bands, Eclipse and Work of Art, in their hands. Jeff, on the other hand, remains the guy who mostly gets songs written for him, then layers on that instantly recognizable voice, with its rustproof, velvet-stroking character that keeps blowing us away at every turn. Once again, Jeff’s voice is the ultimate, essential ingredient that makes the new W.E.T. songs literally burst with the truth of every passion and emotion they relive.
“Retransmission” is an album that grabs you with outrageously vivid swagger and the glow of a seething, high-intensity performance. The production is, frankly, fantastic. It sounds like the band played the whole album live in the studio, as if it were a gig. And as usual, the new W.E.T. album is first and foremost a hard rock album, one that, thanks to its ultra-musical catchiness, firmly steers away from the hallmarks of the modern melodic rock revival sound, and from the AOR tradition too, while the wound-up guitar work doesn’t neglect elements of the classic heavy metal school. Needless to say, this album also bursts at the seams with full-blown drama and pomp. The high-mood peaks come in superbly executed choruses that practically compete with each other over who gets to steal the spotlight on the record.
On the new album, W.E.T. are once again an interesting blend of the songwriting talents of Säll and Martensson, which will please fans of both Eclipse and Work of Art, but since Jeff is such an outrageously dominant singer, today’s W.E.T. are in a way a logical continuation of the path of the late Swedish hard rockers Talisman. Bassist Andreas Passmark, drummer Robban Bäck and the superb Eclipse guitarist Magnus Henriksson once again brought their talents in full bloom, with Henriksson delivering some top-notch acrobatics in the guitar solos. You have to keep your powder dry to get a proper explosion, and W.E.T. know that all too well.
The range of ideas is wide, and the songs, though they stay within a predictable songwriting format, still keep a high level of variety. The eleven tracks unfold at a mid-tempo to up-tempo pace. The only exception is track number 8, the somewhat weepy, ballad-leaning “What Are You Waiting For”, which you hardly miss. It’s not bad, but it’s clear it’s on the album because of the band’s genre, which almost proverbially demands at least one ballad per release. But since it’s wedged in the track order between the excellent “Coming Home” and “You Better Believe it”, the listener loses the feeling that there’s even a ballad on the record. Another track with a whiff of ballad is “How Do I Know”, which W.E.T. pulled off considerably better. The rest of the material is polished to brilliance, a phenomenally igniting mix of top-notch rock swagger and musically predatory bombast. From the arena-sounding opener “Big Boys Don’t Cry” to the closing “One Final Kiss”, one of the fastest songs on the album. Short, to the point and full of heart. At under three quarters of an hour, the album comes as a relief with that running time, since it truly has no songwriting ballast.
Apparently this enforced standstill that has brought the whole world to a halt is, in its own way, inspiring too. Last year we already got a string of fantastic new albums across various genres. It seems 2021 will be the same, and right at the start of the year “Retransmission” is the loud herald of that trend. Bands have more time because they can’t go on tour. That also means more time to polish the details, and “Retransmission” is a prime example of that kind of perfection. Insiders expected W.E.T. to deliver a good album. On top of that, it’s more than an excellent addition to the previous three albums, and even the most mature and dramatic achievement of all four W.E.T. albums, which in its own way isn’t even surprising. Given the string of exceptional talents standing behind it, that’s just the (happy) reality.
Author: Aleš Podbrežnik
Track list:
1. Big Boys Don’t Cry
2. The Moment Of Truth
3. The Call Of The Wild
4. Got To Be About Love
5. Beautiful Game
6. How Far To Babylon
7. Coming Home
8. What Are You Waiting For
9. You Better Believe It
10. How Do I Know
11. One Final Kiss
Line-up:
Jeff Scott Soto – vocals
Erik Martensson – rhythm guitar & some solos, backing vocals, keyboards
Robert Säll – keyboards, guitar
Magnus Henriksson – guitar solos
Andreas Passmark – bass guitar
Robban Bäck – drums
