CONCEALING FATE

After delaying the debut studio album release again, (and again, and again, and again), TESSERACT decided (reluctantly) to please the fans by releasing their epic 27-minute Concealing Fate (of which I had heard bits and pieces before, to my great pleasure) as an EP.

PART I opens up somewhat slowly, with that delayed clean riff that beautifully permeates the whole piece. It then breaks into a sweeping djent-y distortion riff, while proceeding to enter in Dan's great vocal capacity. The whole opening piece is, well, a great opener. It acts almost as an overture, introducing some of the riffs of the other songs.

PART II breaks into a similar clean riff. This is, in my opinion, the best of the six parts. Dan's vocals, the guitars, the bass, the drums, they all come together in a endeavor of near musical genius. The instrumental sections are magnificent, as is the rest of the track.

PART III is a bit more mellow, showing a bit of a slower tempo and less djent. A small slap bass solo is a nice change in pace for the song. Dan's vocals are again magnificent.

PART IV is, as the tile (Sadness) suggest, an even more melancholy, although there is a wee bit more djent in the short part.

PART V greatly reminds of PERIPHERY more than any of the other tracks did. It's a wonderful djenty piece running for about 1:30. It really shows the extreme metal influence in their music.

PART VI is a nice closer. It's reminiscent of PART I, it stars slowly and eventually breaks into a much heavier sound.

OVERALL: The whole track is nice to listen to. Although the band is djent oriented, they aren't a stifling extreme tech death mashup of distorted guitars and screaming strangled vocals. Dan is a magnificent vocalists, easily one of the better of the trade. Really the only down point is that it was released by it own and not with the rest of the album! Other than that, there is a bit of redundancy in some tracks, with just djent-djent-djent-djent-djent-djent-djent-djent-djent over and over again. This isn't a bad thing, but it should be something used sparsely. The whole track is 27 minutes long, but when the riff is used 3 times a part, it can get a LITLLE bit old. Other than that, the track was magnificent. 4.5 STARS.

To be quite honest, there are few bands that leave an impression on me, without me first having listened to a full-length bout from them. Having been introduced in earnest to UK metal act TesseracT's music when they opened for Devin Townsend in concert, I was blown away by their immensely tight and chaotic live performance. Naturally, I would pursue the band's work further into their studio material. Perhaps the reason I am loving this new EP 'Concealing Fate' so much is that I associate it with the incredible concert experience I got that night, but regardless, TesseracT's first official effort has blown me away, resulting in one of the strongest extended plays I have ever heard.

Being part of the recent 'djent' metal movement (essentially bands that try to sound like math metal pioneers Meshuggah), TesseracT takes the travelled approach of chaotic, polyrhythmic progressive metal and adds in something that seems to have been long lost on many other releases in the style; a sense of real melody. With this first professional EP, the band packs in hefty doses of atmosphere, technicality (both in performance and composition), heaviness, and beauty, all in appropriate balance and measure. The entire work flows together seamlessly; 'Concealing Fate' is essentially a twenty seven minute long epic, separated into six pieces for the sake of disc navigation. While it might not have the defined sections as a classic epic suite like Genesis' 'Supper's Ready' or 'A Change Of Seasons' from Dream Theater, the piece works wonderfully well as a composition, and the reoccurance of musical motifs and themes gives the journey a binding cohesion.

'Concealing Fate' opens with some beautifully atmospheric and haunting guitar strings that ring throughout the mix. The concept is repeated and developed upon until the crushing metal element is introduced overtop, in a different time signature altogether. This mixture of different times and sounds give a very chaotic, yet brilliant aspect to the music. Overtop the mathematically sound madness are the soaring vocals of singer Dan Tompkins, which while incorperating screams into the mix from time to time, are for the most part, very melodic and powerful. This contrast between the heaviness and beauty of the vocal work is incredibly difficult to do well, but very effective when accomplished, and TesseracT seems to have no problem finding a proper balance.

While there isn't a highlight necessarily in terms of tracks, the first two tracks do seem to work as individual compositions as well as part of the greater whole, while the latter portion of the EP is suited towards only being considered part of the epic. One thing that TesseracT does really well here is create a dense wall of sound behind the main instruments, something that makes me see why they were chosen to play with Devin Townsend. While the music shines throughout, there are indeed parts that might have benefitted had they had a little more variety of sounds to them, instead of a mere guitar barrage. As the powerful introduction suggests, TesseracT works best when they counterpoint heaviness and lightness as one.

While I would rarely say this for an EP, this has indeed been one of the best things to be released this year. It has everything that I would want in a metal release; complexity, intelligence, tight execution, beauty, and an adequate sense of heaviness. While the music here isn't that diverse, TesseracT give a consistently engaging experience. I cannot wait for their first full-length.

While I'd heard Tesseract a few times on internet radio, like Conor, it was not until seeing the band open for Devin Townsend that I decided to dive in. I had already dipped myself firmly into the djent vat of molten metal, so I was prepared for the overall sound. But unlike so many bands doing this ultra-technical, mathematical style, Tesseract grooves. How does one groove in 15/8 or other random odd time signatures? Imagine a movie scene where a body convulses as it's shot with bullets coming from multiple directions. As Tesseract played, this was the feeling I got in my spine. I wanted to move, but to even call that movement "dance" would be off.

But without a doubt Tesseract makes the listener want to move. Through demos and internet exposure, buzz has been growing for awhile about the band. The small djent fanbase has been slobbering for an album for some time. With CONCEALING FATE, the band almost delivers what the fans wanted. At EP length of 27 minutes, they've delivered a great taste of their sound without overdiluting. The work is essentially a six-part single composition that runs continuously. The band moves a variety of moods and textures, but maintain coherence quite well.

Besides being the grooviest djent band I've heard, Tesseract has one of the better vocalists in the genre. Dan Tompkins has a very good melodic sense and shows us a very broad variety of vocal sounds. My biggest beef with this style of music is its association with metalcore, and Tompkins certainly delivers his share of -core vocals. But he also sings melodically a la Claudio Sanchez of Coheed and Cambria and we even get some nice harmonic sections. He was energetic and gratious on stage, and in fact the band was just really easy to like live. Despite the massive complexity of the music, they seemed humble and hardworking.

Bottom Line: One of the best works available in djent.