DEMO 2007

In 2007, Tesseract, (sadly) with a different singer than who sings currently, released their first demo with three fresh new tracks. The new metal band out of the U.K. Their sound was some what new, similar to what the also unsigned Periphery had been doing in the US for a while. The sound was fresh and creative, mixing the djent that Periphery, and before them Meshuggah, has coined with melodic and more "traditional" progressive rock/metal tones. The writing style is excellent, new, and creative. Melodies mesh with rhythm which mesh with heavy distorted guitars, which makes for a beautiful new sound.

Concealing Fate, Part 1 is the opener to an epic that was recently released an EP. The first part of the epic is incredible, meshing melodic and clean guitar with heavy distorted 7 and 8 strings. The vocals can be harsh at times, but the singer's vocal quality improves when he switches to clean vocals rather than screaming. The music in general is fantastic. The rhythms are head bang worthy, although sometimes mixing in a fun and interesting polyrhythm and maybe a time signature change--which is never a bad thing!

April Song is very Periphery-esque.... either Periphery got the bass intro idea from Tesseract or Tesseract got the bass intro idea from Periphery, but either way the intro is fantastic. Heavy in the intro, heavy in the chorus, beautifully melodic in the verses. The song is overall very balanced and spacey. The rhythms are creative and enjoyable, with that underlying bass rhythm throbbing throughout the entire song. The vocals are actually quite nice in this song, with no growling or harsh screaming, which he is not the best at.

Sunrise is a short and not so fun of a song. It opens with a general death metal beat, but luckily breaks into more melodic territory after the intro. The rhythms again are creative, but the vocals are harsh against a melodic background. Once the melodies break into a much heavier beat, the vocals are not as harsh sounding, but the singer screaming vocals are not very nice to listen to in general, and they are distorted over again, making them worse. A weaker track, but still good in general.

ALBUM OVERALL: A great demo for a great band. At the time of this review, no full-length studio album has been released, but soon there shall be one, and it shall be good. The recording quality, surprisingly for a demo, is phenomenal, as is the quality of the music. High points: creative melodies and rhythms. Low points: vocals are weak. 3+ stars.