Not many people know what progressive rock is, and when asked what it is, it’s not often easily defined. Bands such as Yes, Kansas, and Genesis are thought of when progressive rock is mentioned, however The Tea Club is different, taking the roots of prog. rock and making it modern and original.
General Winter’s Secret Museum is The Tea Clubs first full length album. It features 9 tracks of interesting ever changing time signatures combined with a huge dynamic sound which tends to almost make the album feel like each track is connected with one another. The harmonies of the two brothers, Patrick and Dan McGowan, are highlighted throughout the album. The brothers, who are both very skilled guitar players, have a very unique playing style featuring melodic progressive guitar leads accompanied with arpeggio rhythms sometimes done with acoustic guitar. Their drummer Kyle Minnick shows a great balance between creating a rhythmic background for the band while foregrounding his exceptionally skillful drumming ability, featuring syncopation and creative rhythms.
This album is striking piece of musical art with a mysterious attitude which is both original and appealing. But are people ready for such a new sound? At first The Tea Clubs style may appear to be too unusual compared to modern mainstream music. Bands like The Tea Club need to be explored and showcased more often to promote musical diversity. Would one of The Tea Club’s songs be featured on a major radio station? Probably not. However, the only fault of this amazing band is that the audience for prog. rock is not very vast.
I give The Tea Club’s General Winter’s Secret Museum a 4.0/5.0
The Tea Club is releasing there second album in early 2010
http://theteaclub.net/
Greetings, Johnny P!
ReplyDeleteI just wanted to say that I am a HUGE fan of "prog" & that Yes is my absolute favorite band. Steely Dan's a close second, though one couldn't really call them progressive rock, despite all the nasty chords they use...
While I don't listen to a lot of new/popular music these days - normally my radio listening time is spent on NPR and classical/jazz - I have bookmarked the Tea Club site and will definitely give it a listen later when I have more time.
Thanks in advance for introducing me (us) to a new prog band, can't wait!
ps - favorite Yes album???
I checked out a couple of their songs... I really like "IceClock". Thanks for pointing me in their direction- I'll have to check out more of their stuff.
ReplyDeleteJust listened to Will O' The Wisp...and was just starting to wonder what, to you, identified it as "prog" - as I agree that the genre can be hard to define. So, yes, I was starting to get a distincly pop feel, and then it turned instrumental, I heard some neat changes, and started to think, "Hmm, yeah...I could like this..."
ReplyDeleteSo now I'll pose another question: hard as it may be, could you give a gander at defining "prog"?
The Tea Club identifies themselves as: Progressive/Indie/Alternative in their MySpace.
ReplyDeleteProgressive music is very centered around repeating "riffs" or arpeggios, a lot of The Tea Clubs music has that element to their songs.