Erik Martensson is in that category of writer who has put out a huge amount of music in recent years. Between his own band Eclipse, his Nordic Union project, and W.E.T., there has been no shortage of songs he has penned. And with Eclipse coming off a double album, that feels even more acute right now. So yes, I was certainly a bit worried that W.E.T. was going to suffer the effects, even though he is not the sole writer in this group, especially given that I was not all that fond of either half of that Eclipse record.
The good news is that the rest of the crew involved in W.E.T. picks up the slack, and smooths out anywhere the songs could have found themselves struggling. The added texture of Jeff Scott Soto's voice is the key to this, but the ability to layer harmonies adds to this as well, letting the sound of W.E.T. expand to a bigger sense of scope than Eclipse is capable of. The larger ensemble sounds exactly that, and picks up right where the last two excellent records left off.
These guys know their way around a hook, and how to sell it. That actually raises some questions about why this project is able to do that more than their other bands, but not every question needs to be asked. We can sit back and enjoy this record for what it is, which is a collection of melodic songs that bridge the rock/metal gap by way of massive choruses that are sure to get stuck in your head.
The difference this time is the band is focusing on the heavier end. There are more cranked guitars and metal riffs, and less balladry this time around. That will appeal to a lot of people, but oddball songs like "Elegantly Wasted" or "How Do I Know" off the previous records are some of the best things W.E.T. is capable of. The diversity of sound meshed with the diversity of their talents in a way this record is missing a bit.
The other difference is that Erik takes a few more lines of lead vocals than in the past. It's another matter of perspective, where you could say it shows the band operating as a collaborative unit, or you could say a band's lead singer should do all the lead vocals. Personally, I fall into the latter category, unless the band's gimmick is a 50/50 situation, which this is not.
Those are minor points. This is as well, but it does gnaw at me a bit. The song "Pay Dirt" spends its verses juxtaposing opposites, like devils and angels, truth and lies, etc. There is a line in the song saying "one man's mistress is another man's whore." Are they implying those are the only two options for what a woman can be to a man? And why pejorative terms for the women, and not for the 'men' who cheat on their wives and/or insult women for making money from their bodies? They move on to something else in the next line, so they clearly were not thinking about the implications of that language, but it stood out to me immediately as the sort of thing that we overlook so often. It would have taken nothing away from the song to tweak the line, just so the chance of it being taken the wrong way was removed, but that didn't happen. Intentional, or oversight?
The band is calling this album "Apex", but that's a bit of wishful thinking. It's a very good record of hugely melodic songs, but I don't think it's as complete of a package as "Earthrage" was. This one is an example of how diversity within a sound is a key component to an album's greatness. You want a band to sound like themselves, but you also want them to do more than deliver the same song a dozen times in a row. This record delivers the goods, but it's closer to being the same thing again and again than they have been in the past.
This is clearly one of the best records so far this year, but it's not W.E.T.'s best. That's all I'm saying.
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