TEA FOR TWO - 101 - 2000

"101" is an excellent example of Neo Progressive, - and actually this is a highly important sub-genre, whose best (original!) manifestations lead listeners to comprehend some of the more profound forms of Progressive Music. Tea For Two perform truly original and very tasteful Neo (Symphonic) Art Rock: the melodies have a charming quality to them, driven home convincingly by the vocals of one Stephan Weber. Stephan is an excellent singer and his lyrics are quite literate. As it is, all the vocal-based tracks in the album contain a lot of various, really interesting arrangements, including beautiful interplays between guitarist and keyboardist. While the electric lead guitar work of Jens Oliver Sorup is very good throughout, his purely acoustic piece The Plan shines like a pearl. There are also two other instrumental tracks on "101" - Bitter Sweet and Crossing the Edge. Both these shortest tracks, played by Michael Schumpelt himself, have some chord classical feel, whereas Michael's work in all the vocal-based compositions represent him as a virtuosic keysman. Between the Lines is played more or less mellifluously, often with gentle passages of violin. The album's (longest) title-track 101 is a great song, containing a lot of various themes with regular changes of moods and tempos: from melodious lines, performed mostly by keyboards, to quite diverse and heavy guitar attacks. An outstanding track with superb musicianship in general and with masterly solos from both instrumentalists in particular. The drumming (often manual, as I can guess) is not 'bombastic', of course, but overall, it is quite acceptable - at least.
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