lecko

Hard to choose the best songs..my try in no order

Wild is the wind

In these arms

Livin on a prayer

Wanted dead or alive

If I was your mother

Bad Medicine

Living in sin

I ll be there for you

This aint a love song

I am

Have a nice day

Because we can

Interesting read almost 5 years later. First 2 singles had very exiting reviews ant hten as the people got the whole album some complaints started coming, but also not that critical.   

But readsing the Shock thread there is nothin but bad words about Simplicity. I dont get It why , there are songs on it that I would put into Tesal best of like Honestly, Burnout ot fade, Time Bomb, Rise and Fall, Break of Dawn.  And many solid songs like mp3,  Other than me, So divine, Life is a river...

Had luck that one of the rare shops already here had Cd on the shelf. So I listened it once. Now I am big Tesla fan and I liked all of their albums, including Simplicity.  I struggled a bit with first 3 releases songs online and only after 10 or more spins  I like them much more.    After listening to all songs, besides great production the star of the show is Jeff Keith, especially in the slower songs and ballads. He sings especially the verses very unique , well produced voice and he shows some colours in his voice I didnt heared before. The choruses are all over the place, actually I expected more songs to have big, Leppard like arangments but there are not that many. Some are catch after first listen, but choruses in couple of songs sound without immediate hooks. Another common theme is that songs are quite short for Tesla album . There are also longer solos . some acoustic, some more in bluesy/rock way but maybe not in Tesla style like Son gin Emotrion or Shine away instiurmental part. Of course more to be discovered in further listens.

I agree that song are fine and even growers, but they are not very Tesla lilke. After reading latest interviews Tesla had no plans for any new music and it was actuallly Phil who motivated them and reall wanted to produce them . So I say even leppardized Tesal is bettar than no new Tesla.  " Frank said: "Phil came to us and wanted to produce an album for us... Phil really, really helped us. I'll be honest — we were at a low point after we did [2014's] 'Simplicity'. We were really frustrated, and we were probably not going to make another album. Phil had a bunch of song ideas, and a lot of the writing on the new album is co-written with Phil. He interjected a lot of positive energy for us and helped us get back on our feet. .."

That was the second time they visited Trieste area. Maybe is there living some rich guy sponsoring ? But they mentioned during concert that they reall like the are and food.  They were on a kind of small european tour, but other dates were bretter organised regarding fans, as they were heaslining festival in Nottingham UK, over 1000 fans I guess.  Here some clip from this great concert.   

On 10. 3. 2018 at 10:21 AM, CureTheSane said:

Yeah, I'm only getting to this one now.
I had a massive year last year and really didn't have too much time for music, as work required a lot of concentration for the most part.

So I've been ploughing through some of last years' (and older) stuff and here's my song by song review FWIW.
I'll use a letter system.
A = Amazing       B = Great      C = Good, may make best of mix     D = OK, wouldn't make best of mix    E = Average     F = Crappy

United --- C
Here Today Gone Tomorrow --- C
Gravity --- C
Sinking Ship --- A
One Of Life's Mysteries --- A
No Regrets --- A
Bite The Bullet --- B
Things I Know --- B
The Sky Is Falling --- A
Heaven And Earth --- A
Indestructible --- C

I love this album.
It's been reeled back a bit from the more modern edge they had, but still fresh and hooky as hell.
Big surprise. Way better than I had hoped.

 

7 of the 11 will make my best of folder, which is damn good. Maybe one or two more as well.
Always hard with albums like this.
the tracks I listed as "C" would be B's if they were on an album with a bunch of other filler songs.

Wow.. I would rate the album song by song very similarly.  Only changes - would give Gravity an A, Things I know C, Sky is Falling B and Here Today B. I was lucky enought ot see them play many of those songs live. It was strange gig, in Italy in fornt of maybe 100 fans, but they played full set. 

I come form the Shank rock home country Slovenia and they are the most famous band of this genre. Back around 2000 they had dreams of making it big abroad but in last 15 years they are active on home stages. They changed main guitarist and writer in 2006 and released more alternativ e sounding record, the went on hiatus and are now few years active again with original guitar master Bor Zuljan. They just released new record in slovenian language, they still stick to very melodic, positive music with strong choruses. They had a chance to play together with Steve Stevens at a big festival event few years ago. Here some links:

2 rock classics with Steve Stevens (english of course)i:

their cover of Mr BIG s TO be with you ( in slovenian)

their latest singles (in slovenian)

Restart:

Something more:

No luck without ronck n roll:

This just shows how much production and songwriting matter. Terry Brock working with Slammer, those were some best CDs of those years. Terry Brock working with others is just OK to my ears.