SPILL ALBUM REVIEW: TESLA – HOMAGE

TESLA
HOMAGE
FRONTIERS MUSIC SRL

Homage is Tesla’s ninth studio album, and their first since 2019’s Shock. They have released a few live albums during the past few years, but fans can celebrate because the band finally got back into the studio. Homage may come as a surprise to many fans as it is the heavy metal band covering music that influenced them and songs that they obviously love. There is one new original on Homage, the brilliant opening track, “Never Alone,” but other than the one song, here is Tesla covering Queen, Supertramp, Badfinger, Elvis Presley and many more. But here is the important part, it is really great.

Tesla tackles the songs, and for the most part, makes them sound like Tesla. This is not easy when dealing with songs by bands such as Queen, but they manage to accomplish this feat. Queen’s “Spread Your Wings” sounds like it was written for the band. Tesla threw in a few surprises by choosing some songs one would not expect, such as “If I Can Dream,” made famous by Elvis Presley. Whereas Presley went for the big production, Tesla went for the big guitar sound. The guitars are perfect, and the vocals are spot on. And perhaps the biggest surprise is their version of James Brown’s “I Got You.” Again, they add some heavy guitar sounds to the classic but don’t veer too far from the original.

Some of the songs remain very faithful to the original, such as their cover of Bob Seger and The Silver Bullet Band’s “Night Moves” and Supertramp’s “Give A Little Bit”. But both songs have the unmistakable vocals of Jeff Keith, and in the case of “Give A Little Bit,” a searing guitar solo. Even their cover of “Come And Get It” sticks close to the original Badfinger version; it was written by Paul McCartney and may even be a better version than The Hollywood Vampires’ take on the song released in 2015.

Homage is a great album. Tesla have chosen very wisely. Most of the songs are well known but sort of lost gems (it is great to hear Climax Blues Band’s “I Love You”, a very underrated song) that have been brough into the spotlight again. Tesla sounds like they are have a great time singing the songs that mean so much to them, and I am pretty sure it would have been easy for them to do a double album. But as it is, they were smart to hone Homage down to one album and feature their best versions of these classics.

Artist Links