Psychotic Supper

Psychotic Supper is a record on which TESLA avoided excessive overdubbing and foregrounded the feel of the guitars, Jeff Keith’s gritty voice, and the whole band’s breathing. The riffs have hard-rock thickness, and blues-derived phrasing raises the temperature of the songs. Driving the style established on the previous two albums to something heavier and more powerful, it is one of the band’s finest works. The racing “Edison's Medicine,” an aggressive number about Edison — the rival of the inventor Tesla — symbolizes the band’s hard-nosed side. On “Call It What You Want,” “What You Give” and “Song and Emotion,” strength and lyricism balance at a high level, and the album keeps a near-live drive throughout. Valuing the reality of rock ’n’ roll played by the five of them over showing off technique, it is a powerful masterpiece, still highly regarded, that carved TESLA’s early-1990s peak.