The Szuters - Sugar

 

Pop Rock is undergoing a more than welcome upsurge worldwide, particularly in the States, although bands like Ulysses have perked more interest of late. Music, like fashion, revolves. The Pop Rock heyday of the mid 70's is looked back on as a golden age. Albums are reissued and receive big praise, those that aren't fetch big second hand prices. There was a real sniffy reaction to these albums on their original release from what appeared to be Singles bands. 

Even ELO weren't taken seriously as album bands by the majority, even more so the likes of Pilot and Jigsaw. But now, the new breed are albums bands, refreshing in a world that seems to want to signal the format's death knell. The Szuters may have provided the best example of the genre for a long long while. The Power Pop and AOR fans will just adore this album. It is joyous, singalongs are compulsory and it may be retro, but it is splendidly so.

Formed in Cleveland in the early 90's, brothers Mike and CJ Szuter, the band were more Rock than Pop Rock. They landed a deal in Japan, courtesy of Mr Big's Paul Gilbert, That 1996 self titled debut, got lots of attention and imports eventually resulted in an American release. The band released three albums and a compilation before a name change to Magna-Fi and one album in 2002. The band eventually split in 2010.

Sugar is their return. Now down to the two brothers, their sound had gradually got softer and Mike Szuter's voice was always suited to this direction. Even when the band inhabited a harder rock world, the harmonies were always front and centre. Sugar is a revelation, one of the best things that you will hear this year.

Don't Lie To Me is as near to Jellyfish without being them as you can get. She's Coming Home With Me could be Cheap Trick and has hints of The Darkness with the Guitar interventions. The Things That You Said is McCartney Pop at its very best, It is certainly later Beatleesque, just as I Don't Wanna Cry is very early Beatles. Fall Away could be a Jeff Lynne ballad and Good Thing is absolutely wonderful jangling affair, again very Cheap Trick.

If you want an example of those fantastic 70's Pop Rock albums, Passing Ships And Shooting Stars is it, a beauty of a song and what a guitar solo! The album is very retro, but I've always felt that I'd rather hear a new band offering their take on the past if its done well with their take on it. Sugar is an outstanding example of great songs and song writing. It will be up there near the top of my Best Of 2020 list. I recommend it to you all. Indeed it was hard just selecting just three of the songs to embed as listening examples. I could have chosen any of the 12.

You can listen to the whole album via you tube here. You can buy the album download from the likes of Amazon here. It is also on all the streaming sites. I can't help think that with no physical release available that this is something that Ray at Kool Kat would revel in and I'm also surprised that the band have no Bandcamp page. 

............................