What can be said of modern progressive metal that hasn’t already gained it massive popularity the world over, including India? UK-band TesseracT has been booked to play in India thrice, making their mark with strong emotional music that also baffles the mind in terms of technique. While they had their own set of upheavals in terms of losing vocalist Dan Tompkins, he returned after spending one album, Altered State, away working with Indian prog band Skyharbor.
And that’s the major difference on their latest offering, Polaris . Whoever can’t be bothered enough by line-up changes and the like, and just wants to take the music on face value will enjoy Polaris . It features nine tracks of Tompkins’s amazing vocal range, surged by some real polished grooves from bassist Amos Williams, guitarists Acle Kahney and James Monteith and drummer Jay Postones.
Tompkins certainly experiments with more pop vocal sensibilities but the music remains firmly planted in prog – from the soft numbers like “Tourniquet” and “Phoenix” to some of the best rhythm sections you’ll hear in metal this year, on tracks such as the opener “Dystopia” and “Hexes”.
At times, it does feel as though tracks like “Phoenix” and “Utopia” offer nothing too different in terms of the signature TesseracT sound, not venturing too far from familiar guitar tones and diving deep into time signatures that should have music geeks engrossed in concentration. But then in the final stretch, the band manages to build up the intensity.
Tompkins goes even longer with his croons on “Messenger”, and they make “Cages” one of the best songs in the album. Starting off slow and spacey, TesseracT make this one of the perfect soundtracks for stargazing into the night sky that morphs into screamed vocals over a perfect groove.
It’s almost too perfect sometimes to hear how TesseracT make music – the accuracy and the polished quality of it all are guaranteed to raise eyebrows and even leave a few mouths wide open. That said, everything on Polaris is certainly real and that is a return to form for the band who deliver equally well in their live shows.
Polaris is available on Kscope Records for Rs 120 (MP3)
