Progarchives, the progressive rock ultimate discography
The Tea Party - The Edges Of Twilight CD (album) cover

THE EDGES OF TWILIGHT

The Tea Party

 

Crossover Prog

4.33 | 123 ratings

From Progarchives.com, the ultimate progressive rock music website

russellk
Prog Reviewer
5 stars 'The Edges of Twilight' is THE TEA PARTY's acknowledged masterpiece, but perhaps you haven't yet experienced just how excellent it is. This power rock trio from Canada took their formula of hard rock blues and folky acoustic sound and slathered a layer of Middle-Eastern instruments, melodies and timing all over it, to end up with half a dozen all-time rock classics, surrounded by another half-dozen lesser (but still excellent) tracks. If you want to sample this band, this is where you start.

Specifically, this album is organised around the spine-tinglingly majestic 'Sister Awake', one of the best rock numbers of the 90s. More than a little prog-tinged, this six-minute adventure comes in two parts, a Moroccan-drenched intro and outro sandwiching a most beguiling centrepiece with enough riffage, drama and atmosphere to satisfy any lover of rock, prog or otherwise. This is THE TEA PARTY's 'Kashmir', the apogee of their art. It's that good. Go and have a listen to it now.

But to get there you will have already rocked out with 'Fire In The Head', an opener with more than enough power and subtlety to please, 'The Bazaar', a shorter track based on an eastern rhythm, and the longer, slower, bluesy 'Correspondences', a prog track good enough to be the highlight of many artists' careers. You'll have chilled out with the Celtic acoustic beauty of 'The Badger' and been woken up again by zeppelinesque 'Silence'.

The rest of the album's a bit of a curate's egg. For some reason the band felt the need to insert two of their blues numbers ('Turn The Light Down Low' and 'Since I've Been Loving You' - sorry, I mean 'Drawing Down The Moon') - just delete or skip if you're not a fan of this sort of stuff (I'm not). 'Inanna' is the other indispensable eastern-sounding track on the album and is cut criminally short, while the last two tracks would stand out on any other album by this band.

In the end this album's not about the individual tracks but the overall sound, which will, I hope, capture you and intrigue you over many listens.

russellk | 5/5 |

MEMBERS LOGIN ZONE

As a registered member (register here if not), you can post rating/reviews (& edit later), comments reviews and submit new albums.

You are not logged, please complete authentication before continuing (use forum credentials).

Forum user
Forum password

Share this THE TEA PARTY review

Social review comments () BETA







Review related links

Copyright Prog Archives, All rights reserved. | Legal Notice | Privacy Policy | Advertise | RSS + syndications

Other sites in the MAC network: JazzMusicArchives.com — jazz music reviews and archives | MetalMusicArchives.com — metal music reviews and archives

Donate monthly and keep PA fast-loading and ad-free forever.