Customer Reviews

Transmission

5 star:		(58)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(6)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

The Tea Party are my favorite band and their diversity is the most amazing thing about them. This cd surely shows their adventure into industrial type music. This is by far their darkest album to date.
1.)Temptation-5 stars-Great great song. Really cool intro riff as well. Good lyrics about a destructive life.
2.)Army Ants-4 stars-Not my favorite on the album, but a good guitar song none the less.
3.)Psychopomp-5 stars-Quite possibly the most emotional song on the record. Great sound and excellent lyrics.
4.)Gyroscope-5 stars-Cool slide guitar riff during the intro/chorus. Cool tribal feel during the bridge as well.
5.)Alarum-5 stars-Another incredibly emotional song. Very dark and depressing. Awesome hard rock song.
6.)Release-4 stars-Very very sad. Great song though, very mellow. A song that has been attached to the white ribbon campaign to which the Tea Party are very active in.
7.)Transmission-5 stars-the title song, very cool riffs and once again, very dark lyrics, cool tribal beat.
8.)Babylon-5 stars-Very techno-ish song. Has a really cool video that goes along with it, the hidden track at the end of it, also known as Embryo, is a kick ass instrumental too.
9.)Pulse-5 stars-Really cool hard rock song, good driving beat from Jeff Burrowns. Once again very depressing song.
10-)Emerald-5 stars-very emotional song, and quite possibly my favorite song on the album. Cool acoustic to electric change.
11.)Aftermath-4 stars-Great way to end the album. A mellow quite, brooding song that sort of wraps everything from the album up.
Great album for anyone looking for Tea Party's darkest music. It is also their heaviest album to date.

After catching the end of one of their songs on MuchMusic, I listened to all the Tea Party clips that amazon.com had to offer. I just couldn't get enough and bought Splendor Solis, The Edges of Twilight, and Transmission all at once (I drove to Canada earlier this year to pick up Triptych).

At first, Edges was my favorite of the three, since it has a *very* solid track list. Every single one of the songs is awesome. Because I was so busy listening to Edges, however, I neglected Transmission somewhat.

Now I find that the more I listen to this CD the more I like it. So I listen more, and I like it more and more and more. This CD, even though it was great to start with, has grown even beyond that. It's both interesting to listen to and entirely hypnotic at times, and the electronic aspect was added perfectly. Of the entire album, I would have to say that my favorites are: Temptation, Psychopomp, Transmission, and Aftermath.

Buy this! You will not be disappointed.

This album is brilliant. Tea Party is able to combine aggression with thoughtfulness, melody with metal's noise. I bought this cd after hearing "Temptation" once on my college radio station and it didn't disappoint.

The whole album is good for what ails ya--cathartic in ways few artists can manage. Who needs therapy? Like Korn's "Issues," this album takes you through your deeper, darker, unexpressed emotions whether you want to or not. "Temptation" has an honest, earthy sexuality you can't express with any pallid love song. "Gyroscope" and "Army Ants" are the perfect anthems to rev you up for a challenge. "Transmission" and "Babylon," taken together especially, bring you first through the feeling you get when someone isn't listening and then that you don't care whether they listen or not. The song arrangement was done really well; taken as a composition, the album leaves you feeling satiated because it brings you up and down, heats you and cools you.

Jeff Martins vocals at first reminded me of Jim Morrison with their dark, resonant quality. However, the lyrics are so much more satisfying. You can tell from the multi-layered sound (that comes from the many instruments this band experiments with) and the complicated lyrics that one band, at least, actually spends some time on their craft. You will find yourself resenting the fast-food substance on the radio after spending some time with Tea Party.

Transmission is definetley different than previous albums, but all of TP's albums are unique and need to be analyzed individually. This album they explore the harder metal/industrial sound, which (surprize!) they proved they can master that as well. While previous albums seem to explore the external world, Transmission focuses more inside the self - exploring concepts like guilt, murder, suicide, and obsession. The lyrics are again, quite powerful and well thought out. This is the only band I know of that use words like "animality," "spleen," and "Piranesian" gracefully. If you are Tea Party fan or a rock fan that is looking for something with a little more substance than screaming, this album is a no brainer hit.

On their first two records, The Tea Party allowed themselves to get lost in other bands styles, becomming the victim of comparisons. The Doors comparison, largely due to Jeff Martin's similiar sounding vocals, particularly saddled them and didn't allow the general public to get a real appreciation for the bands amazing musicianship. On Transmission however, the trio took out all their frustrations in the studio creating a dark soundtrack for a futuristic world. Temptation and Babylon in particular cut loose with a hostile attack of electronica laced hard rock which turns into a sonic escape, it feels like you loose yourself in an evil cyber space as Martin belts out lyrics like "we exist in a world where the fear of illusion is real." Forget Limp Biskit, its anger like that which should keep parents up a night.

"Edges of Twilight" being the other. Very underrated band where I'm from. Their Led Zeppelin influence shows heavily in their use of blues and Eastern music (Jim Morrison seems to be an influence the the lead singer, as well). They also have an industrial sort of edge, though nothing like NIN. They mix those together very well to form a sound that's unique.

This album doesn't just hold a bunch of songs that are all the same either. Each song has a different feel and presentation. Very well done and easily as listenable now as when I first heard this album years ago.

I've noticed over the years since I first bought this CD, people have bad mouthed Tea Party to no end. I never understood why because this is the only album of their's that I have ever owned.. and come to think of it, it's quite odd I never bought another since I love this one so much - I'll blame it on the fact that I love this CD so much that I wouldn't want to ruin my view of Tea Party by listening to something of lesser quality.

Truth is, every single song on this album is constructed and produced in such a way, that even with its rough and industrial-like sound, its extremely catchy. The one aspect that really did it for me though is the influence of Middle Eastern music. They pull it off so well (...also listen to songs 'Awake Sister (Remix)' and 'Walking Wounded'). It's an incredible blend of melancholy rock music, industrial rhythm and world music.

Ignore the critics, and the bad-mouths...This album is so far before its time, that people just don't understand it. Do not start at the beginning of their career, and do not get their greatest hits album (Tangents). To experience Tea Party at their best (and truly best) simply buy Transmission. From beginning to end, it's a rock classic.

I remember the first time I heard Tea Party, it was at a little indie record shop and they were playing it on the speakers. I was totally blown away by the uniqueness of their music and have never since found anyone to compare. My favorites on this album are, of course, Transmission, Emerald, Army Ants, Alarum, Temptation and Pulse.

I even heard Transmission on a PlayStation BMX game I used to play!

Very good stuff, definitely recommend. Especially since I hate buying albums for only one song I heard and the rest of it sucks, whereas this whole album rocks!

The high point of the Tea Party's career so far, 'Transmission' is what every industrial-rock album should have been up to that point. It's yet to be surpassed, and I'd be surprised if it ever is.

There's no better feeling than playing a CD to review, falling helplessly into a trance of weighty absorption and forgetting to actually write anything about the album! So it was with the Tea Party's third splendid recording "Transmission" - discounting 1996's "Alhambra" enhanced CD-ROM containing 5 tracks from 1995's "The Edges of Twilight", plus on previously unrecorded song 'Time', sung by bluesman Roy Harper. Minus the plethora of exotic instrumentation which characterised "Edges", though equally panoramic in songwriting scope and musical experimentation, "TX" melds the realm of samples, loops and keyboards with the band's unique "morocccan roll" approach; a blend of Eastern influenced rock coloured by the 'cooler' feel of electronically based instruments. This latest TTP music is compelling and hypnotic - of note is the first single 'Temptation! ! ', with an instantly evocative introduction seguing into a snaking, rythym fired melody and insistent drum beat. Add a taste of singer/guitarist Jeff Martin's intriguing lyrics: "We exist in world where the fear of illusion is real", and this song opens the senses to a collection of tracks more accessible yet as equally seductive as previous recordings. Martin's vocals on "Army Ants" eloquently bespeak his concerns as to the state of human existence at the end of the millenium, a "diary of madness" from which he gathered lyrics for this album. If technology is where TTP head, go with them. They've incorporated subtle, carefully used loops and samples into their trademark sensual driving rock, forming songs of relatively straightforward structure lifted by intoxicatingly beautiful melodies - and all this by song 3 ("Psycopomp")! The lush arrangement weaving through strongly f! ! eatured drums and the definite swagger of "Gyrosco! pe" gives way to "Alarum"'s oscillating groove, capped by drummer Stuart Chatwood's enormous crashing cymbals and open hi-hats. Song of the album (for me) is "Release", a lyrically poetic apology to women. Simple, emotive and elegantly expressed, "Release" is a captivating as anything this band have done. Martin claims he "isn't sure" about the inclusion of "Pulse", a beguiling instrumental, however, the song's gentle, unadorned delivery throws into sharp relief the majority of "TX"'s grandly orchestrated songs. Current admirers should revel in "TX" and may agree with JM's opinion that this is the best work they've done. "TX" is a logical progression for a band who revel in the creation of hybrid musical forms. For those who have not yet become addicted, it may only be a matter of time.