The album is broken into nine tracks but flows like one complete piece of music. Guitarist Acle has outdone himself and has certainly spent the five years between “Sonder” and “War of Being” on evolving the Tesseract sound. Make no mistake, Tesseract is back, and they are back for blood. There are striking similarities to ‘Concealing Fate Part I’ with the warlike screams from Tompkins. Like the title track, there are constant pivots between melody and aggression. It’s a perfect marriage of old and new school Tesseract. Production-wise, the band has never sounded better. The guitars are heavier and on a different sonic level from prior releases. The album kicks off with ‘Natural Disaster’ and within a few seconds, the listener is shot out of a cannon into the fires of the Strangeland, the mythical setting of the album’s concept. So, the question many may be asking is whether the initial single is just a teaser. Is it a true indicator of the rest of the album? Does it ignore all the subsequent releases after “ One”? The answer is yes and no. The song and accompanying video immediately got the attention of metal fans who had lost touch with the band in their last few releases. The brutality of Dan’s vocals, the crushing polyrhythmic riffs, and the many changing dynamics made it clear to the metal community that Tesseract was back.
The band, perhaps influenced by the scale of “Portals,” continued this approach in constructing their next release, “War of Being.” The album is conceptual in nature based primarily on a story by bassist Amos Williams who is also developing it into a novel. The release is also accompanied by an immersive video game co-developed by vocalist Dan Tompkins.īut none of this would matter if they fell short in producing great music. In the summer, the band released the epic, eleven-minute single, the title track, “War of Being”. In 2011, Tesseract exploded onto the metal scene with their debut release, “One.” The darlings of the djent underground blended the brutality of Meshuggah with ambient and even melodic textures not typically found in the genre. Their next release “Altered States” found the band evolving their sound into a more progressive direction. From there they ventured into more melodic space with the sublime “ Polaris” release and the sci-fi theme of “Sonder.” While picking up new fans along the way, this left some of their initial fans and some in the metal community confused about their musical journey.ĭuring the Covid-19 era, the band planned and executed a massive undertaking called “Portals.” It was a collection of their best material put together and filmed in one setting along with dramatic elements interspersed in the music. Cinematic in scope, and epic in the undertaking, the band nicely summed up their career to date with the release.
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