Tesseract – Altered State Review

Tesseract – Altered State

Altered State is the second full-length studio album from the British Progressive Metal Band Tesseract. It was their first album to feature Ashe O’Harra on lead vocals, it was self-produced and was released in 2013.

Since getting this album, I’ve been listening to it constantly. It has such a high replay value, and just gets better with each repeat listen. It is such an immersive, cohesive, powerful record and I wouldn’t mind going so far as to call it a masterpiece.

The album is broken down into four sections: Of Matter, Of Mind, Of Reality and Of Energy, which are themselves broken down into separate tracks. The album as a whole flows like one giant song, each of the four sections flow like one continuous song, and each track works on its own. It really is a well-developed and brilliantly executed structure.

Highlights include the powerful “Resist,” the catchy “Nocturne” and the lengthy and interesting “Singularity.”

Musically, there are beautiful shimmering clean guitar sections and a wash of hypnotic electronics subtly mixing with powerful emotive clean vocals with a real haunting quality, there are brilliant rhythmically interesting and groovy drums mingling perfectly with clever bassline, and there’s the odd section of crushing Djenty heavy guitar at the appropriate moments to top it all off. It’s a lot more subtle, intense and driving than their debut, with an almost post-rock attitude to song building. The way things weave and change fluidly makes it a really enjoyable and entertaining listen. Its a real extension and perfection of everything the band have been working towards so far. They even keep things interesting with some well-placed and non-gimmicky use of saxophones.

Overall; This album is fantastic, it’s a real step-up for the band and a defining moment for the whole movement. If you like this sort of music you’ll absolutely love this record, and if you haven’t heard of this band or album yet, I’d strongly recommend you give it a try. This is one of those rare, perfect, gems of an album that can completely captivate you and capture your imagination time and time again.

Tesseract – One Review

Tesseract – One

Tesseract are a five-piece Progressive Metal band from England and 2011’s One is their debut full-length studio album. It was produced by Acle Kahney, Amos Williams, Francesco Cameli and released through Century Media.

The standard of musicianship here on this album is excellent, particularly drummer Jay Postones and bassist Amos Williams, who’s superb rhythm section forms the backbone of the record. The production job is flawless, and all instruments (and even individual bass strings, drums and cymbals) are clear and audible, amongst the textured guitar, vocal and electronic waves which float over the top.

There’s a nice balance of fast and slow, heavy and soft, straightforward and complex, and a cohesion and sense of purpose that makes the album feel like one, singular, well-considered piece of work.

Highlights include the catchy album closer “Eden,” as well as the lengthy multi-part “Concealing Fate” and the punchy “Sunrise.”

For fans of the band’s second album, Altered State its worth noting that Daniel Tompkins (of Skyharbor fame) provides lead vocals on this album, before their current singer Ashe O’Harra joined the band becoming the band’s fifth lead vocalist to date. Thompkin’s vocal style is in the same ball-park of lush, melodic and emotional clean singing, although different enough that you notice the change.

Musically, this album is noticeably heavier than its follow-up, and there aren’t any saxophones, but in general the band’s identity is more-or-less the same and if you enjoyed Altered State, you should easily enjoy One.

For newcomers to the band entirely, especially those skeptical of anything associated with the word “Djent” its worth noting that in the same way that Thrash Metal bands took the chugging of songs like Black Sabbath’s “Symptom Of The Universe” and spun-off on that idea developing entire songs and albums using that as a starting point from which to develop their own ideas; Here, you can hear the sort of guitar tones and complex rhythms that Meshuggah have been playing since the 90s used as a jumping off point.

Rather than the all-out punishing assault of Meshuggah and their progressive take on extreme Metal, Tesseract deliver that sort of rhythm mixed in with floaty melodic vocals in the vein of Tool and Rishloo, and subtle ambient electronics to create something else. It couldn’t have existed without Meshuggah, and it couldn’t have existed before Melodic Metalcore became a decade-long mainstay of the Metal world, but it isn’t one or the other.

If you are a fan of established bands like Dream Theater, Riverside, Opeth, Fates Warning, Tool or many other Progressive bands within the Metal spectrum, you will find little touches here and there that chime something with what you like already, be that in the use of dynamics or uncommon time-sigs, but updated and in a different shape. If you like bands like Sikth, Botch, Carbomb, Fellsilent, Dillinger Escape Plan, or anyone in the math-y end of the Metal spectrum you man find something you like, but updated and in a different shape, and well, the same goes for if you like Meshuggah. Its not impossible to like Meshuggah and Tesseract despite what a vocal minority may claim.

If you are a fan of bands like Periphery, Monuments, Circles, Animals As Leaders, Textures, Volumes, Structures, Intervals, Skyharbor, Vildhjarta, Miroist, Hacktivist, The Algorithm or The Safety Fire then you may recognize the shape already and enjoy another slightly different take on it.

Overall; Tesseract are a strong and interesting band and One is a strong and impressive debut that should keep fans of the band, fans of the subgenre and fans of the overarching genre happy. Don’t make the mistake of overlooking the band because of the movement they belong to, as you’ll miss out on some brilliant music if you do. This isn’t just a throw-away album from a flash in the pan trend, there’s a demonstrable artist weight to be found here.

I’ve Just Been To See Tesseract and Protest The Hero Live

I’ve Just Been To See Tesseract and Protest The Hero Live at the Manchester Academy, on Thursday the 6th of February 2014. Fuck me. What. A. Gig.

What a gig, and I almost missed it. All week, I’ve thought that this concert was on on the Friday, so today after Uni I had dinner then got undressed and into my pyjamas (well, I don’t own pyjamas, so, into the normal clothes that I wear if its too cold to sleep without clothes) and got ready to drift away to sleep. At the last minute, for no reason I can discern, I got up to look at the tickets. Not to check the date or anything, just to look at them, covetously. That’s when I noticed that the gig was on tonight, and had to get dressed and head straight out the door and walk to the venue. Luckily doors hadn’t opened yet, but I wasn’t in the que very long.

I got in, walked straight to front row center (well, two human body’s distance to the right of center, to be specific) while others where buying beer or t-shirts, and rooted myself in for the night. I remembered jerk crowds the last few time I was here in this section of the Academy (upstairs, not the biggest part that’s in a separate building, where bands as big as Megadeth get to play), so I expected thugs to try come and uproot me. It never happened. Much like the Queensryche crowd, this was the politest, most honourable crowd anyone could hope for. I was really pleased. A little faith in humanity is restored every time you spend a whole evening in the company of people who don’t act like assholes.

The evening was opened up by the Canadian Djent band, Intervals. I didn’t know much about Intervals (no songs, so that’s pretty little) beforehand, but they really won me over. They were really, really impressive. Their musicianship was incredible for an opening band, they had a pretty professional demenour and good songs. A very good band indeed. The sound didn’t really help them out, but they were so good you could tell through the bad sound that they were seriously talented. They were also kind of the heaviest end of Djent you can be, without using any Death Metal parts. Their singer was pretty charismatic and their drummer was straight up awesome (at one stage he hit a cymbal so hard, he broke a big wedge straight off of it and left it looking like a shark had taken a bite out’ve it). Great band. Go see them if you can.

Next up came The Safety Fire. Who were a British Tech Metal/Prog Metal/Djent band. They were also absolutely excellent. Their sound was a bit lighter, more radio-friendly in parts, and sometimes they actually played little guitar runs that sounded like Protest, or those bits on Periphery’s new album that John Petruci from Dream Theater played.

Their drummer was freaking incredible. He plays like he’s trying to pass an exam. Watching him drum was like playing a videogame without dying on the hardest difficulty. Everything about that band seemed on, but the drummer especially was hot, hot stuff. Plus, no Death Metal. They were more like if a Djent band listened to a lot of At The Drive In.

The sound for them was less muddy but the vocals were mixed very low. Again, luckily, they were clearly brilliant so it didn’t matter.

They were really good. Go see them if you can.

Then Tesseract came on. Tesseract are a fucking incredible live band. I took a punt on them just before Christmas and went to go see them live without knowing them, just because I like Periphery, and the two are often spoken of together (like Metallica and Megadeth). Also because Karnivool were headlining and Karnivool are often spoken of alongside bands like Cog and Rishloo, so I wanted to try them out too. Tesseract stole the show, hands down and unequivocally. That show was absolutely incredible (despite a small section of annoying honking fans making clown-horn noises endlessly) and completely sold me on the band. I got their new album for Christmas as a result and absolutely love it.

Seeing them tonight was even better than the first time. These guys are one of the best live bands going. They are like fucking superstars, from their casually cool world’s-tallest-man guitarist, to their Danny Carey’s-maths-homework drummer, their business-looking bassist and the friendly looking other guitarist. That and the new singer. My goodness. That man can sing. Remember what I said about Jesse Leach? Yeah, well double that!

That guy is the best live singer I have ever seen with my own two eyes (and I’ve seen Maynard James Keenan!). If I could give him some sort of award I would.

In fact, maybe I can.

I hereby award Ashe O’Harra the ‘Kingcrimsonblog Best Live Singer’ award

Done. (And well deserved).

Tesseract are such an incredible live band, they just really draw you in, they are so powerful and captivating, it really makes my enthusiasm for live music grow and both times that I’ve seen them, they have absolutely dominated. Furthermore, they had great quality sound. Thank you Tesseract’s soundman.

As if that wasn’t enough, I got to see Protest The Hero too.

If you’ve ever read this Blog before, you’ll probably know that I love Protest The Hero. Since I first got their debut album as a birthday present, I have listened to and talked about them absolutely constantly. Constantly! – According to my LastFM account, I’ve listened to them 1,361 times since August (at time of writing), and in that short time, they have become the band that I’ve listened to Eighth-most, in the entire last three-and-a-half years!

So, with that sort of context, you should be able to figure out that I was beyond excited for this gig. You may however have also seen my write-up about their Live DVD, which I was actually a little disappointed by. That made me a bit fearful that Protest’ were more of a studio band. I mean, their albums are some of the best ever made by anyone. Kezia, Scurrilous and Voltion especially. I mean, I just hammer those albums constantly!

Even if Protest’ were poor live, at least Tesseact had been headline-worthy.

Protest’ weren’t poor live though. Protest The Hero were one of the best bands I’ve ever seen. I had suuuuuch a good time. The energy level was off the charts. They were so good that they pulled out all my reservations. I’m more like a Japanese audience member than a western one usually, but boy did I make an exception. Ever since Lamb Of God’s concert, I’ve been getting more and more into things. I screamed my lungs out, I jumped about, air-drummed, air-guitared, gestured descriptively for all the lyrics and generally banged and danced away like I was having a damn great time (which of course, I was). I haven’t ever thrown more of myself into a gig since I was about 15. I had more enthusiasm here for that hour than I’ve had all year. I looooooved it.

But enough about me, the band, the band were unbelievable. Absolutely nailing such complex, multifaceted, incredible music like it was easy. Even the new drummer who didn’t write any of this bonkers material was absolutely phenomenal. Every musician was entertaining to watch and great fun to listen to.

The setlist was brilliant. They played more or less all of my absolute favourite songs, including ‘Underbite,’ ‘Mist’ ‘Sextapes’ ‘C’est La Vie’ and ‘Blindfolds Aside.’

The crowd seemed to be going pretty wild for them. Proportionately, it was probably the most sing-along concert I’ve ever seen, with the most knowledgable and into-it fans I’ve ever witnessed. It seemed like an absolute love-fest. Deservedly so. They make brilliant songs, and they’ve backed it up live with a stunning performance. I think the fact that they have some of the best and most interesting lyrics I’ve ever read also helps. People sang along like their lives depended on it, which I think is a big endorsement of the quality of those lyrics.

The sound for them was great too. Thank you Protest The Hero’s soundman too.

Roddy was pretty entertaining, commenting on a security guard being the world’s strongest man (which is not an unreasonable assessment) to the point where the bouncer even cracked a happy smile, joking about Buckfast, referencing WWF, WCW and Holywood Hulk Hogan, inviting a handsome crowd member up on stage to be ‘hunk of the week’ (the band played him a little specially-written hunk-of-the-week theme tune too!) and then joking about getting him into bed. He also started singing football chants about Stephen Gerard to annoy the football fans in the crowd, and fake-dedicated a song to Stephen Gerard. It was pretty amusing stage banter. I guess he takes what he written in ‘Underbite’ seriously.

The band’s performance overall was so, so strong. That DVD must have been an off-night, because what I saw tonight was a frigging phenomenal Live Band. It was such a good, good show.

It was such a good show I even bought a t-shirt afterwards (a thing my wallet has stopped me doing since seeing Queencryche Live – so you can tell how much I was impressed to be moved to t-shirt purchasing)

The gig, as a whole, is one of the absolute best I’ve ever seen. Two great Djent bands supporting Tesseract’s world-class superstar-quality live show and the most fun gig (Protest The Hero) that I’ve been to in the last decade.

If you have any interest in modern Metal, live music, or any of the bands mentioned, try and see them live. This was a fabulous bill and a brilliant night. The only way it could be any better is if Periphery also played, and Protest’ got a slightly longer set and were able to fit in ‘Dunsel’ ‘Skies’ and ‘Turn Soonest To The Sea’ – then it would have been the hypothetical best gig ever. As it stands it was pretty damn close.

“So How You Fucking Feeling Tonight?” – Boy, am I in a good mood!

Get (Into) What You Paid For: Vol. 3. Day 52 – The Memory Remains

Its day 52 of my third Get (Into) What You Paid For challenge. There’s ten days left. Even though it got extended to be an extra month long, I’ve been adhering to the challenge and haven’t broken it yet thanks to the Christmas gifts I discussed last time, which have taken the urge to buy myself stuff away for a while. I’ve been working through it. I’ve watched Sound City, I’ve read Joey Shithead’s autobiography, I’ve been heavily listening to Porcupine Tree’s Deadwing and Tesseract’s new album. I’ve been playing Arkham Origins. The entertainment part of my life is pretty well serviced.

I’ve also finished the comics that I got for Christmas from my friend Magnum, and am in the mood for more. Which leads us to the part of the article where I discuss what I would buy if I wasn’t on the challenge not to buy things:

I remember when I first planned to buy comics, I wanted to read three stories. Year One, Knightfall and No Man’s Land. This was due to reading the Wikipedia page for The Dark Knight Rises movie.

I got given a lend of Year One by my friend Magnum straight away. I have never gotten around to reading the other two. After having played the three Arkham games, and just recently finishing the campaign mode of Arkham Origins, I really want to get around to reading them now.

There’s two problems with that though… first off, postage and packaging. Second off, Knightfall is three books and No Man’s Land is five books. So; in order to read these two stories, I need to buy eight books, and eight sets of postage and packaging. You add them to your basket and then think…oooh that’s a bit too much for me right now, and then the postage comes on top and it’s like…hmmm, definitely not now.

The same thing happens in a value for money way. I have a weird notion that I want to buy the first three Poison albums, but for under £1 each. Which is possible on amazon at times, but then the postage for three albums is about six quid, and then suddenly its not worth it anymore. I worry that it’ll be completely terrible but I’m kind of fascinated. I think that people will feel the same way about Limp Bizkit in a few years (Nu Metal is very much the Hair Metal of my generation and Emo is the Nu Metal of the next generation after me, and I’m sure there’ll be some Dubstep-infused-Post Hardcore movement starting to take off soon that will be the one for today’s twelve year olds).

Y’know what else I’d like. More Son’s Of Anarchy. I watched the first four seasons which are available on Netflix over the Christmas break and now I want to see the next three seasons. At first I wasn’t actually keen on the show, but I really got into it and now I really want to see more. I can’t decide if I should buy a boxset or wait until its all finished and buy a complete set or wait until more goes up on Netflix. I don’t know if that’s a thing that happens. Is it? Tell me in the comments if that’s likely to occur.

But I’m trying not to buy those things; so instead, I’ll use the things I already have. Money for comics and campy Hair Metal songs would be much better spend on rent, electricity, food and other essentials, right?

With that in mind, here is the section where I discuss the things I listened to that I already owned:

So onto the aforementioned listening-for-distraction stakes; I’ve put on Fair To Midland’s proper debut album (or third album if you count independent releases), the lengthily titled Fables From A Mayfly: What I Tell You Three Times Is True.

I got their follow-up to this, Arrows & Anchors because the internet buzz was that if you liked Rishloo or Coheed & Cambria, then you should check out Fair To Midland. I do like Rishloo and Coheed & Cambria. I like them a lot. So… I checked out Arrows & Anchors and really enjoyed it. It took me a while to get around to picking up this one.

Its less instant than Arrows & Anchors. Its less driving, less powerful. It takes a lot more time to soak in. Its an album you have to give a lot more time to, in order to get the same sort of return back from it. But the return is definitely there to be had.

It feels a lot longer than it is though, at forty-eight minutes it feels like its about an hour and a half in duration. Not because its bad or anything. I guess, in a way, its kind of dense. Not Neurosis dense. But still… there’s a lot to it.

I like this album a lot, but its more of an whole-album-in-one-sitting affair than the other one, it’s the kind of thing where you have to put on the whole record and pay attention to it, rather than knowing the song titles and having a favourite song. Its just as good, but its less fun, if that makes any sense.

I’ve also been re-listening to Kreator’s Pleasure To Kill album a lot recently. Its one of those albums that you always read is absolutely brilliant, but which I’ve sometimes had a bit of a grudge against.

I know that Kreator’s next three albums are brilliant, well-written catchy Thrash records with many parts that sound like Forbidden, Anthrax and Megadeth and not just grim, heavier versions of ‘Chemical Warfare’ by Slayer on repeat. For some reason though, that’s exactly how I find myself thinking about Pleasure To Kill. I think its just a constants stream of d-beats over one buzzy riff and some ’80s death-vocals, with no variety.

I think this may be because the kind of people who told me Sodom’s Obsessed By Cruelty or Sepultura’s Morbid Visions were good, were the same people who recommend this. (Two albums which I find incredibly dull, repetitive and not to my tastes, by the way). Naturally, I’m suspicious of it. It also doesn’t help that the first song (excluding the intro) is the sort of high tempo, frantic pounding sort of thing that confirms this suspicion. Also, its just one of those things were you made your mind up about it once, years ago, and it never occurred to you to challenge the notion until just now.

Recently though, I’ve been listening to it over and over, and noticing parts that don’t sound like Obsessed By Cruelty. Lots and lots of parts. Over half the damn record. It’s a really good, creative Thrash album with lots of tempo changes, breakdowns, Anthraxy parts and all that good stuff that the next three Kreator albums that I don’t write-off all have.

Woops.

Oh well; at least I know now. I paid for it, it’s a good job it turned out to be good. Even if I was late to realize it.

Maybe I’ll go back and listen to Obsessed By Cruelty and find out its just as fresh and fun as Among The Living and that this whole relentless pounding thing was all a bad dream.

You know what else I did? I listened to Dark Side Of The Moon again. It seems like an obvious thing to do, but I can’t actually remember the last time I listened to it. When I first got into Pink Floyd I listened to them so, so, so much, and watched their DVDs so, so much, that it kind of feels like, I don’t need to listen to them again sometimes. Like, I’ve listened to them so much its just imprinted in my brain forever and its redundant to listen to them any more.
Its kind of such an obvious thing to do, that I don’t even think of it anymore. Should I listen to Pink Floyd? – Well, are you alive? – Yes, I am alive – Then of course you should listen to Pink Floyd. In fact, you are probably already listening to Pink Floyd, just pay more attention.

Maybe all the Porcupine Tree and Riverside had been filling my Floydism receptors in my brain and I didn’t realize I was missing any. Anyway; I remembered to listen to them again.

What a good album. You don’t need me to tell you that. Nobody ever has to say it again. Yes; this and Led Zeppelin 4 are good albums. We know.

I enjoyed myself. I must remember to listen to Pink Floyd again. Sure, it may be for the thousandth time, but its always going to be good.

You know everything I just said about Pink Floyd? Well yeah, that again… only for Pantera. This album is so good, so fundamental to what I like about music, has so many of my favourite songs on it, that I absolutely forget to listen to it.

I’m not sure whether this, Master Of Puppets or Reign In Blood would be considered the Dark Side’ of Metal by the public, but for me, its definitely up there. I was going to start listing the things I like about this record, but it ended up being every single one of the things about this record. The only thing at all wrong with this is that ‘By Demons Be Driven’ has one chorus too many. Otherwise this is a flawless, perfect album. Every riff, every solo, every vocal line. The charming production. The performances. The variety. Its all exactly what I want out of music.

How good is the And Justice For All-sounding clean bit at the start of Hollow? How good is the heavy bit of Hollow? How good are Phil’s clean vocals on This Love? How good are Phil’s grunts, growls and screams on Fucking Hostile and Regular People? How good are the drum fills? The guitar solos?

I guess the take home message is, remember to listen to your favourite albums. They are your favourite albums, remember?