ALTERED STATE

When Tesseract signed to Century Media they lost their singer Abisola Obasanya and replaced him with Daniel Tompkins with whom they recorded their debut album. The album gained them a great deal of kudos and they toured hard, but soon they again needed a new singer so brought in Eliot Coleman with whom they recorded an EP, but it wasn't long before they yet again needed a new vocalist, but let's just hope that they chain Ashe O'Hara to the bus and just feed him and throw him the occasional bottle of beer as he is a real keeper. Much has been made of Tesseract's musical style, and they are often referred to as Djent, but to my ears they are a prog metal band that are using loads of influences from lots of different musical areas and who cares what they are labelled as anyway?

This is an album that is all about strange time signatures and percussive guitars, combined with loads of reverb and atmosphere. Ashe's vocals are incredible as he morphs between different styles and types, but always at the front, and always very much in control. Although there are hints of Animals as Leaders and Protest The Hero, I found that the two bands I kept being reminded of for some reasons were Evanescence and New Order. There is no doubt at all in my mind that Amos Williams has been hugely influenced by the bass playing of Peter Hook, and this combined with staccato riffing makes for some very powerful music indeed. Williams says that "mood, atmosphere, melody, and experiment are the main focus" of the album and I have to agree with him wholeheartedly.

This is an album that is not always easy to listen to, with many angular edges and plenty of riffing combined with the atmosphere and emotion, but it is always interesting and pushing forward. They have been together in one form or another for ten years, and now is their time as this is a heck of an album on so many levels. www.centurymedia.net