Label: UMe Music
Release date: 08.03.2019
Production: Phil Collen
Album length: 44.12 min
Genre: Hard Rock
Hmmmm… “Shock” was one of the most anticipated hard rock albums of this year. No debate. Tesla. So, we’re talking about the new Tesla. Albums come slowly for them these days, and given their golden run in the eighties and early nineties, plus the very successful, maturity-driven stylistic detour into new times with “Into the Now” (2004) and “Forever More” (2008), expectations for the kind of stuff this quintet has always thrilled us with are, well, always high.
In 2014 came the stripped-down, raw “Simplicity”, which did deliver a solid dose of bristling, bare-bones rock, but precisely because of maybe too much ambition it also exposed quite a few songwriting reserves — call them “empty” minutes of playing time that would have been better off not existing, since they weren’t put to good enough use, and the album was consequently way too long. Simply put, there was too much of everything on that record, and the title didn’t exactly suit it. Now, five years later, we get an album from the same band where there’s actually “too little of everything”. That Tesla bring in Phil Collen at the production helm is no surprise, since they’ve been buddies with him since the eighties, but on the other hand, that kind of thing always reads well too. It sparks interest, if nothing else. There were hints that Phil would soften their sound, yet a flicker of hope remained that the band wouldn’t give in to it. But (sadly) they did. What’s more, the lazily swaying California Summer Song, the album’s first single, turned out — once the whole of “Shock” had spun through the CD player — to be a planted cuckoo’s egg. Frank Hannon admitted in a recent interview that without Collen’s positive influence, his pushing and his various ways of motivating the band in the studio, they probably would never have recorded a new Tesla album, which suggests the lineup may have truly run out of creative steam. So Collen is the factor we can thank for Tesla still making music, and as a mediator he must have been very active, suggesting where and how to pin an arrangement onto individual songs.
Even though the opening, punchy You Won’t Take Me Alive doesn’t yet give away the key takeaways about the new album, “Shock” really is a shock of absolute sonic softening of the band’s sound and style. The choruses are packed with backing vocals typical of the “Def Leppard-esque” crowd. They, of course, learned that trick from Queen, and it becomes more noticeable for the first time in the dreamy We Can Rule The World. At the same time, it’s surprising how weakly the guitars grab you across the album. Instead of gratefully noting, while listening to “Shock”, that you can feel the influence of Allman Brothers and Lynyrd Skynyrd, Aerosmith and early ZZ Top again, as is usually the case with Frank Hannon, it’s downright ironic that a track like Taste Like makes Kid Rock the first thing that pops into your head. Excuse me? There are almost no guitars anywhere on this album, Hannon is almost nowhere to be found. The riffs don’t grab in the production. The element that, besides the iconic vocal character of singer Jeff Keith, is really the trademark of the band’s sound and style is Frank Hannon’s solos and his (otherwise brilliant) tricks of slipping in transitional guitar ornaments. Even where there’s room for Hannon or Rude to wreck a mid-eight passage with a serious tonnage of soloing, the thing Frank Hannon has always been famous for as one of the boldest guitar heroes of his generation, it’s nowhere to be heard. They’d rather save the situation with a few chords, the occasional half-step bend, and that’s that. Tied to the Tracks gives some hope for the future, but one swallow doesn’t make a summer. This song is the album’s peak and one of its bright exceptions, showing how Tesla should somehow sound in 2019. Hannon’s slide is nicely audible in it and the track grabs you. Maybe this is the cue Tesla should build on, so they can follow “Shock” up as soon as possible with a proper hard rock album and fix the washed-out impression.
The album even gives off a balladic feel. Besides the ballad We Can Rule The World, there’s Love Is A Fire, which sounds very predictable and was put to better use in some other, earlier times, then there’s the keyboard-backed “Beatles-esque” Forever Loving You, and toward the tail end another “Beatles-esque” one, Afterlife. In between them are tracks whose motifs hang together at a mid-tempo to calm pace (The Mission, California Summer Song…), and the album really takes on the character of a dreamy little tale about five guys who totally surrendered to Phil Collen’s leadership in the studio.
There’s certainly enough Tesla-ness on the album, so in every respect it’s still a Tesla album. If only because of Jeff Keith, from whom Collen coaxed out peak vocal form — Jeff hasn’t sounded this good in a long time. Excellent work from the singer. But his voice works much better when the guitar riffs are pushed up front, which we can’t say about the pop-flavored “Shock”.
However “Shock” ends up splitting the band’s fanbase, one thing is clear. It’s a different Tesla album. Different from everything Tesla have recorded so far. That was the band’s wish, and they pulled it off. At what cost, though? We’ll see. Phil Collen’s presence is strongly felt, Def Leppard moves are woven into the sound and style (backing vocals, musical catchiness), while the raw riff fury and the solo color the old Tesla were famous for have been sacrificed. Let’s hope this album, which by Tesla standards is really already a pretty pop-rock record, is quickly replaced by a properly bristling hard rock successor, otherwise, stuck in a dead-end situation with no real creative energy or inspiration, Tesla had better slowly retire.
author: Aleš Podbrežnik
rating: 6.5 / 10
Tracklist:
01. You Won’t Take Me Alive
02. Taste Like
03. We Can Rule The World
04. Shock
05. Love Is A Fire
06. California Summer Song
07. Forever Loving You
08. The Mission
09. Tied To The Tracks
10. Afterlife
11. I Want Everything
12. Comfort Zone
Lineup:
Jeff Keith – vocals
Frank Hannon – guitar, keyboards, piano, backing vocals
Dave Rude – guitar, backing vocals
Brian Wheat – bass guitar, keyboards, piano, backing vocals
Troy Luccketta – drums
