Adam Sweet – Sink or Swim 
Release Date: 11th September 2020
I must shamefully admit that Adam
Sweet is not a name I have previously been aware of, but it is not a name I
will forget in a hurry, I assure you. The Exeter based bluesman has amassed an
albums worth of superb tracks and has brought in some of the finest musical
talents of the South West of the UK to ably assist him in this task. So, let’s
dive in and explore some more, shall we?
The album opens with ‘Working On
It’ with strains of Wille & the Bandits or Kris Barras ringing out through
the slide guitar notes and driving rhythms which make you want to fill the gas
tank and head out on the open road. ‘You or Me’ rattles and rolls with some
gorgeous harmonica playing courtesy of Ian Briggs while ‘Like It or Not’ takes
things down a notch for a Van Morrison-esque slow jam that brings the organ to
play with consummate ease. On ‘Something from Nothing’ there’s a Reef vibe to
the groove and riffing while producer Josiah J Manning takes to the keys again
to drive this one forwards – the assured vocals of Sweet are certainly at the
helm though with an Eddie Vedder timbre.
Sweet switches to a gentle
country ton on ‘Good Enough’ for a song full of tenderness, sumptuous lap steel
and the kind of porch-spun balladry that makes you nostalgic for people you’ve
never me and places you’ve never been. At first, ‘Miss You So’ seems to follow
in the same vibe as the previous song but there’s an underlying menace and
darkness that builds inside this one in to something with its heart in the
American song book. ‘Devil’s Lake’ is perhaps my favourite song on this
collection with it’s bone rattling blues riff and sharp percussion punching
holes in the velvety blanket of organs – as instrumentals go it is pretty much
as good as it gets.
‘Not a Moment too Soon’ has the
slow stagger of a cowboy the morning after the night before ‘Fall From Grace’
starts with a steady groove before building in to an uplifting and joyful rock track
that Bon Jovi would heartily approve of. Recent single ‘Trouble’ has a
satisfying chug to the guitar work before giving way to the more mellow ‘Here
to Nowhere’ which bobs along nicely, swollen by the backing vocals of Alex Hart
and Joanna Cooke. The album closes out on ‘Something’ll Happen’ which nods to a
dalliance with styles from other cultures and era and, perhaps, some new
directions for the future. Sweet is, it would seem, an excellent all rounder
but what runs through the core of all of these songs is a strong sense of
authenticity and absolutely honesty that, along with the excellent riff work,
is utterly infectious.