Teskey – White Wolf
Independent
11 tracks – 67 minutes
Arizona’s Teskey was formed in 2024 with leader Brandon Teskey on guitar and vocals, Matt Baldwin on bass, Peter Murphy on keyboards, and Brandon Gaddy on drums. This is their debut album recorded live in the studio. Brandon cites that some of his favorite albums include Led Zeppelin I, Jimi Hendrix’s Are You Experienced, Cream’s “Disraeli Gears, Stevie Ray Vaughan’s Texas Flood, and The Rolling Stones Let It Bleed, which were all recorded in the studio. They offered a raw sound that provided a group cohesiveness instead of layering the instruments one upon the other. It was this sound that he wanted to recreate for this debut album. The album mixes the varying sounds of rock with some 60’s style psychedelia and even some jazz fusion.
Teskey opens with a powerful blues rocker “Under the Sun” as Brandon’s growling vocals declares “I let the sun go down on my anger…I pray for life, a sense of dawn”. Next, he declares himself a “Cast Aside Child” in a song that brings Alice Cooper to mind as he explains “that’s the legend how to grasp the stars and grow, how to reach the top and make my name glow. Set in something we learned long ago and heard of going to the crossroads long ago”. They move to a slow blues on “Upside Down World” as he says, “I wish I knew what is true, what’s a lie, the truth might kill me but not knowing will make me lose my mind”.
Brandon wrote the pleading “Don’t Take My Angel” with his wife in mind who at that time was fighting cancer. They move back to acoustic blues with “Lemon Tree” as he sings “my baby don’t want to go to sleep, wants to stay up all night long… baby loves my lemons, wants to climb my tree”. The title song kicks back into blues rock as declares “the white wolf is stalking me” and lets his guitar fly in an extended solo.
“Digital Window” is a funky instrumental with a touch of jazz, allowing Brandon Gaddy’s drums and Matt Baldwin’s bass to have a run of their own. An initially acoustic and somewhat folky “Beneath the Tupelo” slips into electric mode as he notes “she walks with me on the edge” and warns “Don’t seek out monsters or sometimes monsters will be”.
“Shadow Side” opens with a group chant and growl before shifting into a hard rock mode citing “When the devil came knocking, you opened your door, let him play, had his way with you… down to the Gates of Hell”. On another acoustic song, “Redemption Blues” he asks her “to open your eyes like you did long ago”. On the closer, he states, “I want to “Make the World Sing” and further notes ” I want to give you hope, I wanna make you true love to feel”. The song is anthemic and offers perhaps a feel of Led Zeppelin in its symphonic approach.
Teskey offers excellent electric and acoustic guitar with a soulful, whiskey- tinged voice that seems perfectly suited to the songs, which move easily between a harder blues rock to solid blues and frequently into points in-between and maybe sometimes far afield.
