TESLA: Forever More (Tesla Electric Company Records)
By Fizz
Rating: 8.0
Tesla has always been one of my favorite bands. The sheer range in style, texture and emotion that they’ve been able to cover in their 22-year career puts them above many of their contemporaries, and certainly most of the bands that have come out since. At the same time, I’ve never wanted to be one of those slobbering fanboys that automatically declare a CD to be the best thing they’ve ever heard, just because their favorite band’s name is on it. Tesla’s 2004 comeback album, Into The Now, left me oddly unsatisfied, and last year’s double-CD of covers was a pure disappointment. So now, with two strikes against them, the Sacramento band offers up another platter of all-new studio material.
It pleases me to report that Forever More is a pretty good listen. It’s not a home-run, but it’s a definitely a sliding double with the runner stealing third. Be warned that the days of Great Radio Controversy are long over, unfortunately. But I find that this album, more so than the last, is something of a return to form. That’s if you consider “form” to be 1994’s Bust A Nut. In fact, we’re really seeing now how important an album Bust A Nut was in the evolution of the Tesla sound. Everything they are now, began with that album. Sure, some scattered traces showed up on ‘91’s Psychotic Supper, but it was Bust A Nut where the current sound really began to take shape.
The songs on Forever More are a little simplistic, musically, but there are more guitar solos, a crucial ingredient that was strangely missing on Into The Now. Also, where the last album seemed to lumber along at the same medium pace, Forever More has a wider variety of tempos. You’d never guess from the opening title track, though. This song is a bit underwhelming to be the first song on the disc, and I groaned, “Here we go again,” when the verses started. It’s still not my favorite song on the album, and might’ve been better placed somewhere else in the sequence. But then comes the first single, “I Wanna Live,” and things start to improve. Hell, drummer Troy Luccketta dosen’t sound like he’s asleep behind the kit! Jeff Keith is in full motivational-speaker mode, as he often is these days, singing about not wanting the world to pass him by. Tesla is a band that has always tried to be positive, lyrically, a tendency that’s only grown with time, so it’s no shocker here, or when similar life-affirming messages pop up in other tunes. “One Day At A Time” continues the theme, with a title that just screams “AA fight song.” Luckily, Tesla haven’t gone quite so far in their lyrics … yet. Even better, it’s the fastest track on the album, with a solo reminding of “Cumin’ Atcha Live.”
Two of my favorite songs are next. “So What!” starts off like a lot of their recent mid-paced, soft-verse, weird-guitar-effect songs, but packs some attitude into a sassy chorus, and in the end, it’s one of the catchiest songs of the bunch. And when ol’ Uncle Jeff isn’t imparting valuable life-lessons, he turns into this introspective guy with a tendency to brood. Which he does very well on the next song, “Just In Case.” This one finds him mulling over the topic of religion and his own skepticism. “They say it’s in your hands, and everything’s just like you planned,” he muses. “It’s good enough for them, so why not me?” The strong melodies and obviously heartfelt lyrics make “Just In Case” one of the top highlights of the disc.
I read an interview recently, where guitarist Frank Hannon said that a number of songs on Forever More deal with a particular band member going through a divorce. I won’t venture to speculate on which member that might be, but whoever he is, he has a real knack for picking winners. Tesla has a prolific supply of breakup tunes, from the sad, to the mad, to the glad-I-got-rid-of-you kind. “Fallin’ Apart” is of the melancholy variety, but still with that patented Tesla sound to the chorus. “Breakin’ Free,” meanwhile, is supposed to be more angry and defiant: he’s doing the dumping, not her. I guess it’s supposed to be a heavy song, but it’s just so s-l-o-w, it sounds almost like another consecutive ballad. Great solo, though. “All Of Me” FINALLY picks the pace back up again, with kind of a wry, poorer-but-wiser humor. “She took enough of my money to retire,” JK confides, in what is one of the disc’s harder tracks. Finally, if you can track it down, the Japanese bonus track is a hot little number called “My Way,” easily the most old-school Tesla-sounding song here. It reminds me very much of songs like “Action Talks,” and added a half-point to my rating all by itself.
And then, it’s inspiration time again. “The First Time” carries on the message from “I Wanna Live,” only this time, they’re telling YOU to get off your ass, and not just talking about themselves. It’s funny how this band is able, album after album, to pull off these kinds of songs, with lyrics that would make you cringe if they were sung by anyone else. “The First Time” is another of my favorites, and a top lighter-waver. And as gay as it sounds, I can’t help applying the lyrics to my own life.
A few months ago, on their DVD Cumin’ Atcha Live 2008, Tesla debuted a new song, called “Dear Pvt. Ledbetter.” Here it is, with a somewhat different arrangement, and minus the “dear” in the title. As you can guess, it’s one of those flag-flying, support-the-troops songs, the kind that litter country radio, but that you don’t really hear a lot of in hard rock. It’s a little hard to take, considering this was the band that once sang the lines, “I pledge no allegiance to the flag, and I feel I’ve got me some damn good reasons for feelin’ bad.” The lyrics here are a little clumsy, but nothing’s as bad as “If you can, imagine this: the whole world sharing one big kiss,” from the last album. Fuck, NOTHING could ever be that bad! Once again, the melody and sincerity are what saves this song from being cheesy. Damn, but this band is starting to get away with a lot, no getting around that.
The last two songs (not counting the bonus track) are among the heaviest on the album, even though they’re both only midtempo. “In A Hole Again” stars Jeff as Tortured Soul #1, ashamed of some unnamed Thing he did and just wanting to be left alone, over sinister, descending chords and a grinding middle section. “The Game” is actually a little on the funky side, with some parts that remind me of Psychotic Supper. It’s probably the most “modern”-sounding song here, with those stuttering, nu-metal-ish verses and detuned guitars, but still sports a ripping solo.
The production on Forever More was handled by Terry Thomas, who had worked with the band previously on, you guessed it, Bust A Nut. I must say, even though I didn’t like Into The Now as much, it had better production than the new record. At times, the bass is barely audible, and for some unknown reason, they tune the guitars down, something you’d think a band like Tesla wouldn’t feel the need to do. And then, in several places (check out the intros to “I Wanna Live” and “Fallin’ Apart”) they pull this trick where it sounds like the lead guitar is being played through a telephone. Ugh! There really aren’t many complex riffs to the heavy songs like the old days, and the vocals and lyrics can follow some fairly predictable paths. The closing choruses on many songs sound like they might’ve just been spliced in via Pro Tools from earlier in the song, unchanged. Those are my gripes, and in the grand scheme of things, they’re fairly minor. Jeff Keith’s voice is definitely not what it was on their first three albums, but he sounds stronger and more confident here than on Into The Now. The melodies are better, and the renewed variety in songwriting is a welcome sound. I wonder how much of this can be attributed to Thomas’s involvement, or how much to new, younger guitarist Dave Rude, who takes the place of Tommy Skeoch.
Forever More really didn’t grab me on the first few listens, I admit it. I had actually already written this review, with a markedly different take on the record, and a lower rating (a 7.0, if you want to know). And then one evening, I listened to it again, and I suddenly “got it.” If you only like Tesla’s first two albums, then this is probably not for you. The thing I find interesting, though, is that if you take all of Tesla’s albums in order (and maybe throw in Jeff and Tommy’s Bar 7 project), the progression has been completely logical and natural. It’s not like one minute they were playing “Don’t De-Rock Me,” and the very next, they were doing “So What!”
So all things considered, I’ve got to give the band credit for putting out a pretty damn fine album two decades into their career. It’s good to have them back.
Best songs: “So What!,” “Just In Case,” “The First Time,” “My Way”
Worst songs: “Forever More,” “Breakin’ Free”
