If the combination of the album title and the group name, a tribute to the maverick electronic theoretician Nikola Tesla, leaves you expecting something on the order of industrial synth music, guess again. This is guitar-based hard rock (the inner sleeve even boasts, "No machines!") of the most predictable sort, distinguished only by a better-than-average melodic sensibility.

Tesla takes a decidedly heavy-metal approach to its material. Mostly it's the showy twin-guitar attack of Tommy Skeoch and Frank Hannon that keeps the band from sounding overly polite. Fast and flashy, it's perfect post-Van Halen ear candy, offering little content but plenty of excitement. Unfortunately, like many bands fresh from the bar circuit, Tesla still seems wedded to the sort of mannerisms demanded of cover bands. Thus, "Little Suzi" finds singer Jeff Keith dusting off his Paul Rodgers impression, while on the ballad "We're No Good Together" he does a decent Steve Marriott. Even the titles suggest an eagerness to follow any available trend – can the spelling of "EZ Come EZ Go" or "Cumin' Acha Live" be anything but an attempt to duplicate some of Quiet Riot's success with "Cum On Feel the Noize"?

Not that such considerations much matter to the band's potential fans, for whom such conservatism is an absolute virtue. But unless the band can squeeze something distinctive out of its sound, Tesla is unlikely to offer more than a brief spark of excitement before fading away entirely. (RS 500)

J.D. CONSIDINE