UNTITLED

Tera Melos-

My Formal introduction to Math Rock

After attending a camp at University of Michigan over the summer, I made a few friends, and one of them introduced me to Tera Melos. I hadn't actually had a chance to hear anything by them before I left, but I remember going onto a myspace and listening to short samples, and subsequently was blown away by the musicianship: it was nothing like I had heard before. Granted, being a little more familiar with Math Rock, I understand where some of the influence comes from, but to this day Tera Melos remains a favorite. While sharing some similarities with Don Caballero, Tera Melos is indeed its own entity.Four guys (now three) recording progressively styled music, but with a punk attitude. The sense of contrast is something to speak of: their "heavy" parts, while not exactly bone crushing, provide stark contrast for their mellow (yet many times equally frantic) sections. Another distinguishing characteristic is their high usage of finger tapping, but not in the conventional "Eruption" sort of way, so it doesn't grow stale. They implement vocals on occasion, but it is an extremely background instrument, and not present in every single song even. What I like about the band is their attitude: they play their music with the attitude of just that, with no pretenses. Their live shows are apparently something to behold (I've yet to have the privelege to see them): they play this music while doing cartwheels, flips, and all sorts of wild acrobatics, and don't miss a beat. Anyway, onto the album.

Melody 1: more or less of an intro to the rest of the album, shows them utilizing several effects already, and is somewhat reminiscent of Squarepusher, with jazzy sounding chords and electronic drumming

Melody 2: this is where things kick into really high gear, exploding right off the bat into a schizophrenic groove! This song is quite unpredictable, not quite in a Behold...the Arctopus way (far less abrasive) but in every way just as repetitive (or complete lack thereof). The more aggressive sections come without warning, and yet somehow it still doesn't feel forced like many bands who attempt this (the Miss Machine album comes to mind). Excellent musicianship from everyone in the band on this track. The latter half sort of sounds like they are rummaging through silverware in the background, which is sort of odd, but not annoying. It really becomes almost post-rock like in the last third or so.

Melody 3: a similar guitar line to the beginning of the previous track fades in, and now its the drummer's turn to show off, and it isn't a double bass "hit every tom" blitz, it's actually quite tastefully done. The drums really do carry this song.

Melody 4: now into yet another impossible to count section...into a punk section? it does for a short time, but it's sans the whiny vocals that accompony most actual punk songs, and somehow works in context...this band also has a habit of lulling the listener into a false sense of security, then blasting them with a completely unexpected section (don't let it scare you away though, its part of the fun)

Melody 5: the monster track out of all of them, this one's quite a ride. I won't go into too much detail, its in line with the rest of the songs on the album, more of the same and yet not. It's interesting to note that the album itself works more as one massive song rather than a collection of 8, probably why they chose to label each song as a "Melody" rather than with an actual title. This song actually gets quite noisy in the middle, but not for too long. Some of the electronic scapes used remind me vaguely of Kid A- era Radiohead, especially in the latter section with the electronic drumming.

Melody 6: this returns the listener from the almost dreamlike former section back into the world of "math rock". I can't really elaborate too much here because all that's needed to be said has already been said.

Melody 7: A nice way to round out the end of the album

Melody 8: I really don't quite know what to make of this track....this is where the actual "music" ends and they spiral into a sort of noise scape...a 28 minute one at that. It's definitely interesting to hear what they can do with their equipment, but ....not for 28 minutes. Perhaps this is in line with their whole "punk" mentality, a sort of finger in the air to any sort of semblance of convention. Either way, its up to you to judge this one.

Overall, one of the stronger debuts from a band I've heard, definitely recommended for anyone who's interested in math rock and perhaps even fans of Technical prog metal (though it ain't metal, sorry)...has a few obvious flaws (the last track comes to mind) but overall rounds out to a very solid 4 stars.

Most of the time, Math rock is too non stop, and emotionless for me, bands like Don cabellero are what I call too grindcore, but Tera Melos is something different. If theres one thing I love about Math rock, it's three or four guys with the skill of all the members of Dream Theater, but not being a bunch pretensious a**holes showing off. Math rock bands are more concentrated on creating an intense, fast paced, and extremely technical rythym, but as I said, it usually comes with the price of being just too much, especially for a hardcore post rock fan such as myself. Tera Melos though, knows how to control this grindcore effect, and utilzes both the speed, and technicality of Math rock, and the restraint, and snsibility of post rock. Leaving albums like this, leveled out, evenly distributed, and semi easy listening.

All the songs are basically gems, with the centerpiece of all of them being the amazing guitar riffing and technicality. If you watch some of their videos, you see the lead guitar player tapping away to form the melody, and you're just in shock as to how such technical stuff can make such beautiful music. Polyrythmic drumming is also a math rock essential, and this band does it great. The drummer is so furios the whole time, you may question how he dosent pop a blood vein, playing as fast and technical as he does. The only song I have a beef with is the twenty minuete long melody eight, I mean it's good, but it does drag on, and of course gets a little stale, and I just dont think it fits with all the other shorter songs, but really the song isnt that bad.

If you're a fan of seventies symph prog, I cant recomend this to you. If you're a fan of extremely chill post rock such as sigur ros, or GY!BE, I cant recomend this to you. If you're a fan of the faster side of post rock, or math rock, I highly recomend this amazing album to you. Even the tech metal fans might have a good time with this album. 4 stars.

'Tera Melos' - Tera Melos (7/10)

I have known about Tera Melos for a while, but they were only recently brought back to my attention by another fan of experimental, free-thinking music. In fact, those two terms are ones I would first use to describe the music of this Sacramento-based band. Although Tera Melos are a post-rock band, or math rock, or whatever-you-want-to-call-it, there is a much more adventurous spirit in their music than the typical act of the genre that I'm used to hear. While Tera Melos would go to even further lengths of experimentalism in their music with further albums like 'Drugs To The Dear Youth', the self-titled debut meets an agreeable mix of pleasant sounds and unconventional writing.

Like many post/math rock acts, Tera Melos is almost entirely instrumental, and I can only imagine how someone would manage to fit vocals into this music. 'Tera Melos' is a very technical album, and while there are plenty of mellow guitar tones to enjoy on the album, the songwriting is like a tornado, picking up virtually everything it can get within its grasp, and run with it. Each of these tracks are called 'Melodies', an ironic name for the fact alone that most of these tracks have very little in the way of hooks or memorable melodies. Instead, each of these are chapters in a discordant, turbulent journey. Although Tera Melos never reaches the heaviness of metal, much of this music gets distorted and chaotic. To be honest, there are times on the album where things get a little too crazy and haphazard, and by the end of the album, it becomes that much less of a shock to hear the musicians constantly burst from mellow post-rock to pseudo-grindcore. Both the heavy and lighter elements of the band are highly impressive, although the band's forte is with their technical sensibilities.

'Tera Melos' is about as challenging as post-rock will get, and softer-leaning fans of the genre will probably turn their noses in disgust when they hear how bloody manic this thing gets. As someone who has long been looking for something fresh in my post-rock intake, 'Tera Melos' does the trick. Viciously technical, discordant, and just a little bit beautiful.

TERA MELOS has been one of the more innovative math rock bands of the 21st century displaying some of the most extreme attributes of the genre which incorporates highly complex time signature that are rich in instrumental interplay and had added various ambient electronic effects, unconventional and even bizarrely experimental song structures as well as exaggerated rhythmic patterns, start-stop dynamics, free improvisation and an extensive use of pedals and samplers.

The band formed as a result of the breakup of No Regard in the Sacramento, CA neighboring city of Roseville. After its demise, members Nick Reinhart (guitar, vocals, programming) and Nathan Latona (bass) started TERA MELOS in 2004 and soon recruited guitarist Jeff Worms and drummer Vince Rogers. While the band has existed as a trio in recent years, this debut album displays the more complex sound they wove together as a quartet before Worms jumped ship in 2006.

The band spent an entire year practicing before playing its first live gig and recorded this eponymously titled debut album during that time which consists of eight tracks simply and ironically titled "Melody," since the nerdy math rock presented here is about as non-melodic as you could ever desire. Despite the focus on the strangely displayed irregular drumbeats and the dangerous hyperactive syncopated guitars, the band excels in creating a varied stylistic approach that creates a knotty tapestry of strange sounds resulting in a rather pleasant sum of the parts.

TERA MELOS does a great job in showing how math rock is both related to hardcore punk as well as the ebbs and flows of post-rock. While the former is more reminiscent of the choppy antics of the Minutemen rather than the jaunty distortion of Discharge, the band succeeds in cranking out some seriously metallic cacophony from time to time through the jittery flow of the first seven tracks, however the post-apocalyptic soundtrack to hell resides at the end of the album with a 29 minute noise jam that is the musical equivalent of lava erupting from an angry volcano ready to lay waste to the world around. Comparisons to noise bands like Borbetomagus and Supersilent have been made.

The best word to describe TERA MELOS' debut offering is surreal. This album wends and winds all over the place but yet has a logical thread of continuity to it as well at least up til the final pyroclastic flow of sonic dystopia. The guitars are generally characterized by a clean vibrant sound that finds pleasant tones twisted and contorted into strange irregular shapes that somehow find themselves knotted up into tufts of sonic constipation but the band never stays put for too long and finds as many ways of releasing the tension as it does building them into crescendoes that occur at irregular intervals.

While the final "Melody" that swallows up half of the album's real estate may be a bit too much for most, even hardcore math rockers, the first half of the album is about as cool as a cucumber of a nerdfest as math rock can get. Personally i love the utter differences of the two halves of the album with the freeform noise rock antics of the second half creating a startlingly bizarre world of unpredictability.

I've truly never heard another math rock band that does it quite like TERA MELOS but then again there are many bands i've yet not encountered. For my money though, this eponymous debut album is quite the wild ride that keeps things stimulating through its entire demented run and if you're seeking a truly demanding and thoroughly exhausting musical workout that's not in the metal universe then this will satisfy those cravings for sure.

"It's a wonderful day in the neighborhood! 'Cause rockin' makes us feel so good!"

Hailing from Sacramento, Tera Melos formed in 2004, releasing this, their rarely self-titled, generally untitled debut LP, in 2005. The album art here chosen, with its charmingly ugly script font, is likewise less familiar to me. Fronted by the so-Cali experimentalist Nick Reinhart, Tera Melos here features still-current founding bassist Nate Latona, in these early days (the first 4 years or so) drummer Vince Rogers, and, leaving just a year(?) following this release (in late-'06), second guitarist Jeff "The Worm" Worms. I'd've happily made up "The Worm" if it weren't for a very real 17 year old PunkNews.org article announcing his departure from the band. Untitled strikes me now--good Lord, like 10 years since my last listen-thru(?!)--as a mathematical Noise Rock album: a harsh and challenging listening experience. It's also before any use of (standard) vocals by them. Partially-realized half-truths above, but regardless its celebration here and by friends is warranted. Readier than ever, I'm thrilled to be here.

Our untitled debut before us is perfectly fitted with 8 practically untitled tracks. Our first is "Melody 1", the shortest of all at just over a minute's length. Get your motors goin' with this one, a soft number featuring the signature electro-noodling provided by Nick's plethora of delaying and reverberating (sometimes alien) guitar pedals (it's magic, it's alchemy). More familiar to me is "Melody 2", at first a hurried Math Rock number with memorable, super-wonky chord stabs. Please don't count it out haha. Beautiful melodies, truly, ideas from which seem to have developed into some of the great numbers off Drugs to the Dear Youth (2007) and Patagonian Rats (2010) to follow. Likewise, this builds on a well-established Math Rock foundation, harking back to Don Caballero, and reminding me of Tera Melos's contemporaries Giraffes? Giraffes! (whom I likewise highly recommend). Over a lengthy ambient conclusion, percussion seems to include the battering of a set of kitchen cutlery; flatware, as it were, being rhythmically thwacked from across the room. It's awesome, frankly. Onto the next one, "Melody 3" perfectly rides #2's coattails, with now-classic tap-arpeggios. Nothing to really write home about here, though; still, purty enough.

Up next, you guessed it(!), it's "Melody 4"! And we are back into the more discordant and wild side of Math Rock (still nowhere near as noisy as my terrible memory made it out to be), but basically just here at the start. Fascinating to me, the melodies so melodious here (in a genuine way), I hear major influence specifically on Emo-Pop 2-piece powerhouse Origami Angel (masters of discord and power, also like that aforementioned other 2-piece, G?G!). On the other side of the coin, in more notably progressive territory, dare I say it sounded like The Most at times. This should come as no surprise to those aware that Math Rock has had a word to say, a firm footing, throughout much of Emo's now ~40 year history. So, through all its colors, "4" rings loudly as Emo, Post-Hardcore more broadly, and the avant-garde, somehow neatly wrapped up into a single, tasty package. "Melody 5" is the second longest at nearly 9 minutes, featuring some wordless yelling, and robotic murmuring. A great example of what feels like instrumental storytelling, everything packs a punch, from the more emotive and evocative, to the heaviest slams. Nearing minute 6 is a keyboard melody which I was convinced briefly was The Office theme.

Vaguely recalling "Melody 6", some of the best of the melodies can be found herein. It's a forward drive. It's also beautiful, in my opinion. Again, remember the very relevant post-hardcore influence of this band; Don C., Faraquet, Slint all seem relevant to this discussion in their own ways. "Melody 7" feels like an appropriate follow-up to "6", likewise more clearly melodic, straightforward even. Very very cool track. In a sort of Shoegaze fashion, more of Nick's vocals can actually be heard hear as well, but it's completely buried in the mix, contributing to the composition, as vocals are wont to do. With a super heavy bridge, the return is a triumph, however brief (like a minute to the end haha). Finally, for all the marbles, is the whopping 29-minute "Melody 8". This is the 'moment' on the album where all of my past fears and confusions regarding noise resided. It is relentless, and I had to resist turning it down (since I thought my levels were pretty alright up until). Nick's guitar screams and wails. Nate's bass drones on, sometimes dropping out completely, sometimes warming up the chaos from behind. Vince on the drums just tears through it all (they couldn't have found a better replacement than in John Clardy). I'm knowingly 'new' to Jeff; he's killing it, too, obviously. There's some random piano jammed in here. We get some nice alone time in an eerie, liminal arcade. I'm not sure what else there is to say here, as it's really best to experience these sorts of musical adventures yourself. Helluva way to close out an album of any kind.