Artist description 3 piece (keys/guitars/drums) with extensive touring and recording experience. Songs you can sing with a message you can believe!

Music Style Christian Arena Rock

Musical Influences Pink Floyd, Queensryche, Kansas

Similar Artists A blend of Journey, Spocks Beard and Alan Parsons Project

Artist History Together for over 25 years, opened for such great arena rock acts as Seger, Foghat, Nazareth and more.Movie and TV soundtrack experience. reaching the world...one song at a time.

Group Members Marq Andrew Speck - Vocals, keyboards Bill Blatter - Guitars, vocals Steve Wieser - Drums

Albums Power-N-Glory 1985

Press Reviews UNITED STATES - This disc has a theme throughout every song, which is the word STAND. Not too many groups have an album like this. Very big sounding, positive messages, reminds me of some of the better music in the late 80s (Shooting Star and Jim Steinman in particular. Remember Jim Steinman? Meatloaf!) This music is so full of excitement, something always happening, and the progressions are not all standard and obvious. I like that. Makes me want to listen more. Lots of harmonies and wordings that are just not what you’d expect. This is a very original disc. Ive liked every song so far (I’m halfway through the CD). The musicianship here is top-notch! Marq Andrew Speck is lead vocalist supreme, and he covers the bass and keyboard duties quite well. He has a beautiful high tenor voice which soars over the artistic painting of music below. Very lifting and enlightening. Bill Blatter sings harmony vocals and covers all guitar work. Best word to describe his playing – wow! It just went right to my soul, and touched a nerve in a good way! Steve Wieser plays all the drums and percussion here. A nice mix of acoustic and electronic drums. Well done – hard to do that in today’s music. The recording and production of this disc is one of the best I’ve heard in a long time – even the live track is incredible (kind of ELP-ish!) Sorry, don’t mean to compare. The guru Gary Spaniola mastered the CD. Always a good choice for final touches. Well done, gentlemen. I was thoroughly impressed, and felt included in your music. Highlights are the entire disc. If I had to pick? Do You Believe In Love, In God We Trust, Stand Up & Shout, In Your Name (which is dedicated to NWA flight 255, 8/16/87, nice touch). Reviewed By AIR-X JAM RAG “Detroit’s Music Magazine” June 2002 Vol. XVII, No.6 CD Reviews THE NETHERLANDS: This American Christian band comes out of the State Michigan and I can easily inform you they are the latest new AOR sensation in the underground scene. Their debut CD - Still Standing - is filled with high quality 80s typed hook-laden AOR with superb vocals, catchy choruses, and loads of pure 80s AOR keys and in general the band has a big sound, comparable to JOURNEY and SURVIVOR. If you think that SWEET CRYSTAL is a new band, then you're wrong, because they have been around for over 25 years now, so I guess you can say that they have gained some experience through the years. It's amazing that they haven't been discovered sooner, because their AOR is from a very high level and could have placed them next to the big guys back in the 80s. The whole CD is sensational, as I couldn't find any weak song. The vocals of lead singer/keyboard player Marq Andrew Speck are definitely giving the AOR of SWEET CRYSTAL the finishing touch, because his voice is quite superb and comes dangerously close to JIMI JAMISON from SURVIVOR. A lot of the songs are uptempo 80s typed AOR rockers that remind me of WHITE SISTER, early FM, CRY HOLY, SIGNAL, AVIATOR, early ALLIES and most of all SURVIVOR and JOURNEY. My favorite tracks are When I Think of You (straight-ahead 80s AOR a la WHITE SISTER), In God We Trust (superb 80s AOR keys and harmony vocals), No Two Masters (AOR ballad duet with a great female singer) and In Your Name (hello JIMI JAMISON's SURVIVOR Power AOR ballads!). On the other hand, why pick favorites, because the rest is also fantastic, like Do You Believe In Love (semi AOR rocker, very much like SURVIVOR) and Soldiers of the Crown (uptempo 80s AOR with cool keyboard lines and a sound like CRY HOLY and the very first ALLIES classic). The keyboard work on all the songs is very impressive and reminds me of the 80s AOR, but also Pomp freaks will go nuts, especially on the live track Stand Up and Shout. There's even some Prog./Sympho on this record, in the song This Way Forever where we get an impression of how ASIA sounded with good old JOHN WETTON on vocals. All in all, this band is a must to check out if you want to hear that perfect 80s AOR all over again. (Points: 8.5 out of 10) Gabor Kleinbloesem, Editor Strutter'zine http://www.angelfire.com/ma/strutteraor THE NETHERLANDS: Everyone out there, let me tell you that there is still hope! Just check out this Christian AOR/Pomp band from Dearborn Heights, Michigan, USA and experience its quality and brilliance. This threesome has already been together for over 25 years and had only managed to release one album before as a cassette only, but with this second album available on CD, they are going to conquer many more fans, mark my words. The band takes experiences gained from opening up for such rock legends as Bob Seger, Nazareth, Foghat and Steppenwolf. Marq Andrew Speck on lead vocals and keyboards, Bill Blatter on guitars and vocals and Steve Wieser on drums are able to deliver an album full of guitar-laden hooks, superb emotional vocals and walls of keyboards and synths. You can hear influences of "old" bands like Allies, Sweet Comfort Band, Idle Cure, Whiteheart and more recently Faith Nation, which should give you an impression of what you could expect. Just listen for example to "When I Think Of You", which starts off as a ballad, but before you know changes to a fantastic AOR killer track, with a chorus-line straight from heaven, the lovely ballad This Way Forever or the sensational pomp rocker In God We Trust, with magical chorus that kept on spinning in my head for days and you should get the picture. The album closes down with two instrumentals, namely Looking Back (a gorgeous Journey like melody) and Ominicity, which in no way downgrade the high level of this album. Sweet Crystal definitely deserves to be checked out, so surf to www.sweetcrystal.com and get yourself a copy of Still Standing... Ed Kruijskamp http://home.pi.be/rockreport/ SWEDEN: Listen up folks, here we have a new AOR sensation in Sweet Crystal. Sweet Crystal is a 3-piece Christian act from US and they plays AOR with POMP influences in same style and quality as 80's Asia, Cannatta, John Wetton and Tradia. They open up with a track written by Chris Eaton called Do You Believe In Love. This is a superb AOR song with lots of keyboards and great arrangements in a very 80's Asia style. The singer Marq Andrew Speck sounds a lot like John Wetton. Next song Soldiers Of The Crown is little like Saga meets Cannatta. This song has very pompish keyboards that are all over it. When I Think Of You is a POMP/AOR song with great harmonies and a good mix of both guitars and keyboards. This song reminds of Tradia at there best. The ballad This Way Forever is a nice piece of work and has a Cannatta feel over it with nice female vocals in the background. In God We Trust is the best song of the album. This is a catchy POMP/AOR song with some dut-dut keys in the start and impressive harmony vocals in the chorus. Tradia is written all over this song and the keyboardsound are just amazing. The album ends up with two instrumental songs. One of them Looking Back is a beautiful song that makes you wanna dream away. This is a song with wonderful and amazing piano work from the singer and it sounds like it could have been played by J. Cain of Journey. Man, I can just imagine how good this song would be with words. Well this is a album for all your AOR maniacs that miss the good old days with Asia, Cannatta and Tradia. I hope that these guys will be discovered over here in Europe by some of the leading AOR-labels. This will be one of this years biggest surprises. Juha Harjula www.melodic.net NEW ZEALAND: I first picked this trio up on MP3.COM, and was quite taken aback at the extremely high quality of their music, both in terms of the arrangements and the production. You could tell this effort was not put together in the back bedroom or in the downstairs basement on a dodgy 4-track Tascam! We get the full monty on this album of tracks by this Detroit based outfit. Not only do they crank out good music, but it seems they run a production and recording facility. So I suppose it's a case of practice what you preach. Talking of preach, these guys are Christian, so the music inevitably compares to others of the genre, but added in there is a commercial but progressive element. On the rockier tracks, Idle Cure and Kerry Livgren's A.D easily comes to mind, while on the quieter ones, Illustrator permeates out of the history books like a long lost cloud from the eighties. The songs I'd originally heard on MP3.COM sound heaps better on CD, and that says something as I thought they were great. The quality really comes to life. Their opening number Do You Still Believe In Love is a mid-paced effort written by Chris Eaton (featured elsewhere on this site). Their excellent Soldiers Of The Crown is featured here again, like a hi-tech cross between Illustrator and Fighter. When I Think Of You opens slowly before breaking out onto the AOR highway in top gear, complete with pulsing bass lines and swinging guitars. We get some pomp bombast through the middle of This Way Forever, which has a very big and spacious production. Messiah Song is an interesting track, initially a complex intro before settling into a melodic rock track that Kerry Livgren would feel at home with. 'No Two Masters' also features the female vocal talent of D.J Stevenson, who sounds like Debbie Davis (Witness)! No kidding!! 'In Your Name' continues the melodic presence, building to some big chorus climaxes. On Stand Up And Shout you can hear Sweet Crystal in a live context, and believe me they sound rather awesome. Also heard are some big sound effects coming through. While their coup de grace is the fantastic hi-tech Tangerine Dream flavored instrumental Ominicity. This is one for the Air Keyboardists among you. Superb stuff. For those with a liking for Christian melodic rock, without going through the normal CCM channels, then go seek Sweet Crystal like I did. For fans of keyboard based arrangements with quality production then join the queue. - George Thatcher, Editor HEART of the ROCK website URL: www.heartoftherock.com

Location Detroit, MI - USA

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