Sjak: The letters in the name of this new band represent Work Of Art, Eclipse and Talisman, which all three have a very good reputation in the melodic hard rock genre. From Work Of Art guitar player Robert Säll is to be found in the line-up, while guitar player Erik Martensson (who also played all the bass parts on this album) is coming from Eclipse. Last but not least we have the contribution from Talisman, which is done by none other than lead singer Jeff Scott Soto. Because of the fact that you also need a drummer Robban Back was hired for that job, while Magnus Henriksson accounts for some of the guitar solos on this album.
So the line-up of W.E.T. sounds very promising, but is that promise also effectuated in practice? Yes, certainly because this debut album is a high quality affair! The band doesn’t look for new things, but just does what it’s good at: the making of very fresh sounding melodic hard rock, which in my opinion comes closest to the later material of Eclipse. However, W.E.T. has more A.O.R. influences than Eclipse and their music is somewhat more commercial sounding.
The record has a number of very good songs like the great ‘One Love’, the magnificent opening track ‘Invincible’, the fantastic ballad ‘One Day At A Time’ and the A.O.R.-gems ‘Running From The Heartache’ and ‘My Everything’. The other tracks are not far behind in quality level and that means that you have a record at hand which has no weak song on it. All tracks are catchy and you won’t be able to get them out of your head after a few listens, while Jeff Scott Soto is really showcasing his vocal capabilities as usual. I don’t know whether this is a one-time project or that this will evolve into a real band situation but as a melodic rock fans I truly hope that it will be the latter, because I would really like to go out and see this in a live setting. The obvious advice is to get this one!
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