TESSERACT - Altered State

According to the principle “today it rains, or it doesn’t”, when I heard that TesseracT were preparing for a new studio album, I thought of two possibilities: it would either be much worse than their debut, considering that it is extremely difficult to top an offering such as One; or we will be faced with unheard of progress that would revolutionise the metallic underground to its bones. And, to my surprise, I was right. Altered State is under One in all aspects (as you may have realised, my prophecies were really fool proof). Production is not as dynamic as on the first album, in that instruments are no longer at the same level - the bass, cymbals and ambient guitars are more often than not withdrawn towards the back, and additionally we no longer get the groovy riffs that were so abundant not long ago.

The vocal part is not better either. After Dan Tompkins left the band, his replacement Elliot Coleman was not really well-adjusted to the music of TesseracT, and was quick to depart, not before marking his territory with his appearance on the EP Perspective. Finally, Ashe O'Hara was brought over who, while being more acceptable than Elliot, has a slightly testicle-squeezed vocal timbre. Plus, unlike Dan, Ashe only uses clean vocals (no growling), something that I would have admired more from the first vocal: he was really uplifting when you heard him singing clean. Right now, some growling would have been nice, because, as I said before, Ashe’s normal voice does not excel, and supplementing it with angrier parts would have made him look a bit more accomplished than he really is.

Now, let’s move on to the positive things. What I really appreciate is that they didn’t try to duplicate the music from One; we get original music, slowly moving away by the djent that so many bands of the new wave swear by. While I would have loved to hear the energy from Part Two - Deception, Sunrise or April, now the music TesseracT is more tranquil, with sax parts and quite a lot of jazz, especially when Amos Williams (bass) and Jay Postones (drums) are left to their own devices.

Of the songs from this album the one I enjoy the most is Of Mind - Nocturne, absolutely amazing. Of Matter - Proxy, Of Energy – Singularity and Of Energy – Embers are also extremely good tracks, an honour to the record and to TesseracT. While One was a complex album, this time the music is pretty linear, with few surprises, and it risks to become boring if you’re not 100% focused. Even so, Altered State is an album worth hearing for all fans of progressive metal, without a doubt. As it is easy to notice, this review gives a lot of weight to their first album; if that hadn’t existed, I would probably be raining praise on them today.

Fantotzii Nota: 8.5