THE TEA PARTY: The Edges of Twilight

Produced by Ed Stasium and The Tea Party

Released: 1995

The 90s threw up a lot of artists that were blending disparate musical influences, but few bands were able to do it as convincingly and engagingly as The Tea Party. With their magic third album the band brought all of the elements together in a way that remains unmatched.

The Edges of Twilight brilliantly showcases The Tea Party's ability to marry a basic Led Zeppelin-inspired blues rock with the same folk and world influences that band also loved; indeed if there was a band to faithfully continue Zeppelin's legacy in that area, The Tea Party was that group. Jeff Martin's rich, commanding baritone weaves enigmatic lyrics around an appropriately mystical musical backdrop that combines rock with Eastern structures and instrumentation.

"Fire in the Head" opens the album with a majestic, cascading riff that mirrors that of "Kashmir"--an audacious and self-contradictory move when the band's stated goal was to distance itself from Zeppelin comparisons--and "The Bazaar" quickly follows with Martin's hard rock guitar playing an Eastern motif underpinned by a harmonium and goblet drums. Having thus established the rock crudentials that enamoured them even to more parochial heavy metal fans, The Tea Party then goes on to explore further musical territory with "Correspondences" and "The Badger" taking on a more folk-oriented feel with more extended use of traditional acoustic instruments. These lead up to the album's centrepieces, "Sister Awake" and "Turn the Lamp Down Low" where all the elements come together in harmony as the band use hand drums and Indian stringed instruments to enhance the cabalistic atmosphere evoked by Martin's lyrics. Later on, the mandolin and harp-guitar track "Shadows on the Mountainside" shows The Tea Party once again embracing a folk ethic that is given further substance by the appearance of Roy Harper (look him up) reciting poetry in the extended unlisted coda of "Walk With Me".

The Edges of Twilight was justifiably The Tea Party's most successful album and while it seemed to enhance rather than shirk the comparisons with Zeppelin and the Doors that shadowed the group, it showed off a remarkably talented and diverse band that embraced its influences and worked them into something special and original.

1. Fire in the Head
2. The Bazaar
3. Correspondences
4. The Badger
5. Silence
6. Sister Awake
7. Turn the Lamp Down Low
8. Shadows on the Mountainside
9. Drawing Down the Moon
10. Inanna
11. Coming Home
12. Walk With Me

Rating: 93%