“I saw you at the corner store / your hands are shaking as you open the door / she said, ‘uh-huh’.” What a lyric. What a lyric right there, coming from a wild blend of Sweet, the glam-rock brilliance of Be-Bop Deluxe, and the atmospheric edge of Aviary. There’s the attitude, the vibrations, the glam-pop, the progressive sensibilities, the album-oriented rock, and the power-pop, all rolled into one, coming from a band that has been making noise in Pittsburgh for seven years. After Swiss-born vocalist and organist Sue Pedrazzi moved from her home country to Pittsburgh, she teamed up with guitarist Richard Stanley, bassist Dan Hernandez, and drummer Kayla Schureman to form Sweat.
A powerful explosion turns into an incredible volcanic blast, one that has been waiting to happen at the right time and in the right place. Now, Sweat gets the chance to follow up their 2023 debut, Who Do They Think They Are, with their second album, In Dreams, released on the Tee Pee label.
This is a killer of an album, carrying all those genres in a delicious strawberry-blueberry smoothie just waiting to be served with hallucinogenic visualities. It’s colourful, explosive, psychedelic, and overflowing with enough sonic flavour to keep you coming back for another taste.
The opening track, ‘Open My Eyes’, and the ascending, soaring adventure of ‘Dreams’ gets you into your platform boots, with powerful riffs flying through the air like a jet engine traveling at 600 miles per hour. The band tackles the rock ’n’ roll lifestyle, landing you in a foot-stomping groove with the Fender Rhodes-like keyboard Sue places into her arrangements during the chorus. It’s a sound that brings UFO’s ‘Natural Thing’ to mind while also recalling the glam-rock and progressive brilliance of Be-Bop Deluxe’s Sunburst Finish era.
‘Start Again’ almost feels like Sweat tipping their hat to Toronto-based progressive doom-metal maestros Blood Ceremony. Sue dives into that ’60s garage-rock vibration, continuing the path that ‘Flower Phantoms’ left behind from their 2016 release, Lord of Misrule. You can feel the Rise Above influence hitting on all cylinders, as Sweat captures that same eerie, vintage atmosphere associated with Blood Ceremony. The results are mind-blowing.
But what’s this? Is Sweat heading into a cosmic space-rock voyage by hurling through the cosmos with ‘On My Own’? Oh, hell yes! Hell to the yeah!
For a brief moment, I thought I was listening to either Motorpsycho or Hawkwind, but Sweat carries the torch for both bands while taking the sound somewhere of their own. They make the jump at light speed, blasting forward with powerful riffs, monstrous lead effects, blaring Deep Purple-esque organ work during the climax, reverb-drenched vocals, and an ascending chorus. Sue pours her heart and soul into the song, giving it an emotional force that makes the whole thing feel like a rocket launch into another dimension.
Then Sue puts her own heavy spin on ABBA’s textures with ‘Somebody Like Me’. Think of it as a hard-rock version of ‘Money, Money, Money’. I know she’s going to draw comparisons to Pat Benatar, and that’s understandable, but it’s more than just that. Sue’s soulful vocals soar with an angelic tone, leading into an emotional, heavy-riffing ballad. Stanley’s powerful guitar work drives a motorcycling arrangement, with a bit of Lindsey Buckingham’s finger-picking texture appearing in the middle of the composition. It feels like you’re exiting a tunnel and beginning the next chapter of your own life, only for the song to erupt into a complex roar reminiscent of Metallica’s Kill ’Em All era, delivering a climactic punch.
Hernandez gets his bass revved up with his pick, followed by Sue’s nod to Jon Lord’s metallic organ work, before the band drives into space in a 1961 Corvette straight out of the 1981 cult classic Heavy Metal. In their spacesuits, they look out over our solar system before heading back down, bringing some pounding cosmic arrangements to the core of ‘The End Is Near’. Then they land back on Earth, singing around a campfire in the middle of the Mojave Desert.
With a folk-like country texture, they end their journey with ‘Fauves’, leaving listeners with its psychedelic improvisation, a final invitation for everyone to come and enjoy the party for a very, very long time. It feels less like a conclusion and more like the doors being left open for another trip into Sweat’s strange and colourful universe.
Put it on. Leave this album on. Don’t let it get off you, whether you’re listening on your iPod touch, record player, android, iPhone, or portable CD player. Head bang until the crack of dawn, because there’s more where that came from.
Sweat’s In Dreams is the album to be on the lookout for. So, get on board for the adventure of a lifetime. And in the words of Optimus Prime from the 1986 movie Transformers: The Movie: “Now, all we need is a little Energon, and a lot of luck”.
