THE MARIONETTE

Mad Tea Party is an obscure art/progressive rock band from Germany with one album released so far in 1998 named The marionette. The musicians involved here are all highly skilled , each one done Cologne conservatory at some point. The music is tight, precise, when accesible when really complicated, there are some really complex structures that will pleases every fan of the genre. Though the music is quite hard to clasify, I can tell some Yes influences, Saga, Gentle Giant and even very similar in many parts with Diffrent Trains another unknow band conducted by Davon Shulman no other then son of famous Ray Shulman from Gentle Giant. Also there is a lot of art rock moments, all done in elegant manner, some fantastic instrumental parts on many pieces like on Love In A Square, Every day an uplifting happy tune with nice vocal passages, Shadows Of The Past or the monster ending track She clocking around 20 min is a pure joy. The vocal lines are aswell excellent Alexandre Zindel has a very pleasent voice for such music. All in all, I wonder why they never gain much more wider recognition, this is a fantastic album with a lot to offer, catchy moments all over, impressive song writting and skills. I guess they disbanded few years later in 2001 as far as I know. From me 3.5 stars, a forgotten unkown release that has plenty of memorable passages. Intresting art work aswell.