Tessmarka" title="Search for Tessmarka">Tessmarka has already been labelled ‘One of the best bands in South Essex’ by the local music press. Well, it’s always nice to hear that from the local press. Especially since they're on the Colchester based Rising Records. They’ve recently released their first 6 track debut EP. Let’s see whether the local press are friends of the band or Tessmarka really is a nice band.

This selftitled album starts with ‘The Reason’, which instantly made me wonder where I’ve heard that riff before. I believe it was Nirvana but what the hell, even Coldplay copies riffs in their songs these days so who am I to hold Tessmarka responsible? The first thing I noticed during this song was the energy that literally drips off the album. I’ve got to hand it to them it does work very catching and before I knew it, I was nodding along. Sadly enough for my head, the nodding doesn’t stop during the second song. Just halfway through the song I realised I must have looked ridiculous behind my PC so I closed the curtains.

With ‘Starting Over’ the acoustic guitar is pulled out to support the song. It gives the song a more punk poppy approach which fits the song perfectly. Not really my cup of tea and rather a song for the ladies, which is in this case not a bad thing. With ‘Better Than You’, ‘Ready To Roll’ and ‘Committed’, we’ve already come to the end of twenty minutes of Tessmarka.

Well, what can I say after twenty minutes? During the album it’s pretty obvious that Tessmarka is aiming for simple poppy rock/punkrock songs that are easy to listen to. Indeed that is done a lot before with bands like Sum 41 and all the other bands that are in your little sister's MP3 collection. But maybe Tessmarka will bring something new to the table. At least they do know how to write catchy songs that are easy to listen to and even are playable when your mother in law is riding along in your car.