At the end month, Turning Tricks entertainment are bringing out the godfathers of prog, TesseracT for their very first South African Tour!
In honour of this amazing opportunity, we will be dedicating every Tuesday to promoting Tesseract’s music, in order to show everyone why they should be buying tickets!
This will include showcasing their music, album reviews for all of their releases as well as an interview with the band themselves.
So keep an eye out!
ARTIST: TesseracT
ALBUM NAME: POLARIS
RELEASE DATE: 2015
COUNTRY: England
GENRE: Progressive metal
MEMBERS:
Acle Kahney – guitars
James Monteith – guitars
Jay Postones – drums
Daniel Tompkins – vocals
Amos Williams – bass
Up until this album, TesseracT have had a different vocalist on each release – Dan Tompkins on One, Elliot Coleman on Perspective and Ashe O’Hara on Altered State. It was around June 2014 that Ashe decided to part ways with the band leaving many fans up in arms claiming that perhaps the band was now doomed to repeat this trend of vocalists coming and going. But, as soon as original vocalist Dan Tompkins was announced to return to the band a huge sigh of relief was heard around the progressive metal community. As much as there has been an Ashe vs Dan mentality among fans, there’s no denying that having a voice like Dan’s back in the band would yield fantastic results – and a fantastic result was indeed achieved with Polaris, the band’s third studio album. Perhaps the break from the band was exactly what he need to mature and truly find his own voice.
Right from the get go we are treated to that classic Tesseract staccato sound that immediately connects your ears to your heart and soul, swiftly followed by Dan’s vocals (as if to say ‘don’t worry fans, here you go, let’s get right into it’) that from the first verse you already can feel that all is once again right with the world and he has resumed his place as the frontman for this band as if nothing had ever happened. It just goes to show that, even after a few years of absence, his presence as part of the overall sonic adventure that is Tesseract just feels right. Not to take anything away from Ashe as he really did fit the scheme very well, but on this release there’s no denying that Dan is the right man for the job. In typical Tesseract fashion, almost the entirety of the songs on this album have a connected feel and we are treated to a beautiful kaleidoscope of sounds that ebb and flow from the sultry right through to the damaging. It must be said that the songwriting on this album is incredibly mature and shows that the lads have kept evolving musically while retaining that essence that when you hear a song it is undoubtedly Tesseract.
There are quite a few standout tracks here, but if I had to choose I would go with Hexes (with guest vocals by Martin Grech – seriously, go check this guy out) and Phoenix (if ever there was a study on using the voice as an instrument then this song should be in the syllabus). This is an album that can easily be kept on a loop for hours and you will always hear something a little different each time the songs come back around again. Truly an astounding piece of work that I can honestly say I have listened to every week since it’s release – beautiful.
Make sure to check out my interview with James Monteith going live next Tuesday (25 April).
Reviewed by: Kevin Rule (more from Kev)
Date: 18 April 2017
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