Search - The Tea Party :: The Interzone Mantras

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Chubb Hottie | Austin,Texas | 10/28/2005

(4 out of 5 stars)

"WOW! I am relieved that TTp have released this album. Triptych is a good album. Good album. Interzone Mantras is a GREAT album. This has all the classic Tea Party elements. It fuses eastern instruments with a truly rock sound. It took me 2 spins of this disc for me to fall in love with it. This album along with The Edges of Twilight and Transmission are my favorite Tea Party offerings. If you love great rock music with thought provoking lyrics, then this is the album for you. If you are new, I suggest doing a little research on the band to fully understand their work."

This band always delivers

I ain't no porn writer | author, "Crippled Dreams" | 04/26/2004

(4 out of 5 stars)

"I like the 3rd and 4th tracks best, especially the harmony in "Master and Marguerita". But there are other good ones on here too. Another good effort from one of my favorite bands!David Rehak
author of "Love and Madness""

Drags you down

E. A Solinas | MD USA | 02/06/2006

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Canadian rock'n'roll is finally getting itself on the front pages of music magazines. So it's a shame that the recently disbanded Tea Party is still largely obscure.



So put away the other wonderful Canadian bands for a moment (I love Arcade Fire and Broken Social Scene, okay?), and explore a darker, wilder niche. This Canadian band seems like the love child of the Doors and Led Zeppelin, and "the Interzone Mantras" shows them off at their blistering, hypnotic best.



In a way, it's a concept album: The songs roam all over the musical board, whether it's heartbreaking violin ballads, or teeth-rattler rock'n'roll that Led Zeppelin would not be ashamed of. It explores the faces of hopelessless, evil, apathy and the "the beautiful abyss," before turning out beautiful songs like "White Water Siren" and the finale "Mantra," which come to the conclusion that "love is all we have/love is all we need."



The best of the bunch is undoubtedly "The Master and Margarita," based on Mikhail Bulgakov's novel about the devil roaming 1930s Moscow. "So now that your faith's gone who are you going to trust?/now that your conscience is crawling in the dust!" Martin sneers, sounding both seductive and frightening.



But good as that song is, it's not the most striking. Martin wrote "Soul Breaking" about a letter a girl sent him, about her sexual abuse. You can hear the raw emotion as he sings, "You can't seem to run away/because every time the past's awakened/every time your soul starts breaking..." It may be one of Tea Party's finest songs ever.



A lot of critics label Tea Party as pretentious. Well, if it's pretension, then it's the best kind. Tea Party piles on different sounds and cultures -- bits of Russian and Middle-Eastern mostly -- along with blistering guitar riffs and sizzling basslines, swirling into each other in a hypnotic manner. Even the slower songs like "Angels" have some white-hot riffs.



And Jeff Martin should have quite a chunk of the credit. He sounds a bit like Jim Morrison's tamer little brother, with that amazing voice that manages to rise above the noise. It's sensual, rich and flexible, and he can belt out those complex lyrics as if he were born knowing how.



One of Tea Party's best albums, "Interzone Mantra" is a wonderfully nuanced album, with plenty of white-hot hard-rock as well."