Tesseract (band)

Early years (2003–2009)

Tesseract started out in 2003 while founding member Acle Kahney was recording and writing with his band Mikaw Barish. French vocalist Julien Perier supplied vocals during Tesseract's early stages, but the logistical difficulties of distance meant that he could not join the band permanently. After their first full lineup was realised, Tesseract began playing live shows and compiling material for their debut album; they released a four-song demo in 2007 containing parts of what would eventually become their debut album One.

One (2009–2011)

In 2009, original lead vocalist Abisola Obasanya left the band. He was replaced by Daniel Tompkins; Acle had come into contact with him having assisted with the production on his previous band First Signs of Frost's album Atlantic. The band reworked the album's songs with Tompkins, moving towards a 2010 release. Just before beginning first major tours, Tesseract released Concealing Fate, a six-track suite which forms the centrepiece of their debut album, One, which was released on 22 March 2011. Later that year, Tesseract toured throughout the UK in support of One with openers Chimp Spanner and Uneven Structure, and also performed at the Sonisphere Festival in Knebworth.

Perspective EP (2011–2012)

On 20 August 2011, rumors began spreading that vocalist Daniel Tompkins had left the band, as Tesseract were seen performing with a different vocalist during a gig at the Craufurd Arms in Milton Keynes. This was confirmed by the band a few days later on 23 August, when they introduced Elliot Coleman as the band's new vocalist. Daniel Tompkins went on to sing for the progressive metal band Skyharbor and the pop rock band In Colour.

In September 2011 an instrumental version of One was digitally released and in October 2011 both the original and the instrumental versions were released on vinyl as a double LP.

During early 2012 Tesseract worked on an acoustic EP inspired by the radio acoustic session they played in Brooklyn, New York a year before. This came to be known as Perspective and it was released on 25 May 2012.

Altered State (2012–2014)

On 12 June 2012, Tesseract announced that Coleman had amicably left the band: On 7 September 2012 the band announced that they had found their yet-unnamed new vocalist and would release the single "Nocturne" on 12 October. A series of shows in Europe were also announced, including a performance at Euroblast Festival. It was later revealed that the new singer was Ashe O'Hara. Tesseract issued a short statement about the new vocalist on their website.

On 28 February 2013, the band unveiled a release date for Altered State, and a full track listing of the album. The album is a 51-minute continuous piece divided into four large sections (Of Matter, Of Mind, Of Reality, Of Energy), each of which contains several tracks. On 30 April "Singularity" was aired on BBC Radio 1's Rock show, and has been released on their SoundCloud account.

During a phone interview with Metal Injection, Williams stated that the band would be going on tour in the US during the summer of 2013 and touring Europe in late 2013.

Altered State was streamed in its entirety on 12 May 2013 on Century Media's official YouTube channel, two weeks before its 27 May release.

Odyssey/Scala and Polaris (2014–present)

On 27 June 2014, it was announced that Tesseract had parted ways with vocalist Ashe O'Hara, with Dan Tompkins rejoining the band as vocalist and leaving Skyharbor. On 18 May 2015, Tesseract released Odyssey/Scala, their first live DVD and album compilation.

Shortly after Daniel Tompkins reunited with the band, writing and recording for a third studio album began with the band making frequent updates on social media of the band in studio tracking multiple instruments. Tesseract's official Facebook page released a video teaser for the new album titled Polaris on 10 July 2015. They also released album art and a release date of 18 September 2015. A full album stream was uploaded to YouTube by Kscope Music on 15 September 2015. A tour was done in November 2015 to support the new album, the opening bands included The Contortionist, ERRA and Skyharbor.

Musical style

Tesseract plays a specific style of progressive metal which often features polyrhythmic riffs and odd time signatures, and several atmospheric layers. The band has stated that they do not compose their music with specific polyrhythms in mind and play what they feel fits the groove. They also include a mid-range sounding distorted guitar tone and melodic clean passages heavily influenced by ambient music.They also play in the style of the subgenre djent pioneered by Meshuggah. The vocal style of the band has seen a considerable shift. On One, Daniel Tompkins employed a mixture of clean and harsh vocals, with an emphasis on long, drawn out notes. However, Ashe O'Hara's performances on Altered State dropped the harsh vocals entirely in favour of a more melodic style, with an emphasis on strong melodic "hooks". In an interview with Metalspree, Ashe stated, "...right now, being ourselves is to have purely melodic vocals. With ‘One’ they felt they had to have harsh vocals in order to be accepted by the community. But, they’ve never really wanted to be that type of band."

In his interview with Metal Injection, Amos Williams stated that the decision to drop harsh vocals entirely from future material was an unconscious collective decision by the band and this made the search for a new vocalist extremely hard; his explanation was that many vocalists with an all clean style do not want to live the "metal" lifestyle of regular touring, or do not enjoy metal music enough to want to take part in a band in Tesseract's style. While Altered State did not feature any harsh vocals whatsoever, Polaris sparingly makes use of harsh vocals on the songs Messenger and Cages.

Throughout their career, the band have produced, mixed and mastered all their material themselves: Williams is a qualified audio engineer and Acle Kahney has carried out production, mixing and mastering work for several other progressive metal bands.

Amos Williams stated in an interview that Tesseract's music is relatively reliant on the bass in comparison to other metal bands: he states that "[The bass] is always on its own little shelf" in the music and that during the production process "We left a lot of room for there to be sub and actual bass stuff going on".

Discography

Studio albums

Extended plays

Live albums

Demos

Singles

Videography

Tours and festivals