Tess Of The Circle: Amplify

Pumping up the volume.

Tess Of The Circle Amplify album cover

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Some artists wear their influences on their sleeve, others like Tess Jones, the singer/songwriter/frontman of Tess Of The Circle, absorb them as they grow up without consciously registering them, thereby developing a style of their own.

After two albums with a considered approach and carefully structured songs they’ve released the handbrake and headed off at full tilt in a style that sways seamlessly from folk to rock to punk but always leads to a strong chorus. The new rhythm section gives the band a stronger bite and the vocals have a grunge-like intensity.

Opener Love Is The Drug That You Crave is delivered as an admonishing answer, as if you had dared to suggest that you craved anything else. Towards the end they revert to a more reflective, emotional mood with some fine string arrangements but the passion never falters.

Hugh Fielder

Hugh Fielder has been writing about music for 47 years. Actually 58 if you include the essay he wrote about the Rolling Stones in exchange for taking time off school to see them at the Ipswich Gaumont in 1964. He was news editor of Sounds magazine from 1975 to 1992 and editor of Tower Records Top magazine from 1992 to 2001. Since then he has been freelance. He has interviewed the great, the good and the not so good and written books about some of them. His favourite possession is a piece of columnar basalt he brought back from Iceland.