With the music industry as difficult and un-financially viable a path as it is in the modern day, the survival of bands is not without some roadblocks along the way. Bands calling it quits altogether, members coming and going and a greater need to stand out and make a mark are just some such trials that can make or break.
Since their roots as a bedroom project of guitarist Acle Kahney in 2003, UK prog metaller’s TesseracT have overcome and experienced much more than many of their peers could ever have imagined, all the while almost making it look easy. Being considered a founding alumni of the ‘djent’ scene with their debut album One, they survived the style’s saturation through some evolution on follow up Altered State (both Century Media), vocalist changes as frequent as the weather. Oh, and they’ve also played on an iceberg.
The transition from One to Altered State saw a departure from the extreme metal influences of which they were known for a more melodic approach. On their newest effort Polaris (Kscope/eOne), as drummer Jay Postones explains, the forward motion is continuing: “It’s just progressed from the last album. I know that’s a really cliché thing to say because its progressive music and we just constantly strive to make something a little bit different but, I think we were perhaps more focused with this one, maybe less rushed and we had a bit more time to structure the songs and work on the ideas that really excited us.”
Comparing Polaris to its predecessors, it is an ever greater leap into more prog and ambient territory than Altered State was; a much more layered and even intricate work. As Postones explains, much of the reason for this was the working influence and presence of their sound engineer Aiden O’Brien: “He wrote a lot of the ambient parts and the piano; he had a massive input on this album. You can hear a lot of subtle differences, like, going between songs, and he has been involved in writing those parts. There’s a kind of sixth dimension to it which has been really cool.”
In fact the experience of O’Brien from other aspects of the music industry helped towards making an invaluable contribution to Polaris’ hypnotic and serene atmosphere. “He performs as much as we do (and) he’s been with us for a very long time; his main job is writing music for TV ads and stuff like that, so he knows how things should sound, for want of a better phrase.
“It’s very subtle things that many people might not hear but for people with massive speakers or headphones, they will hear the things he does. They may be subtle or subliminal but they make an impact and make a difference to us. It helps you feel the music a lot more. There’s a lot more going on than any other record.”
On the face of things it could be said that perhaps TesseracT, more than just moving from the scene that they helped to shape, are in actual fact veering from metal altogether. Certainly there are moments here where metal is entirely stripped away, for example the drifting, brooding ‘Hexes’, but simultaneously there are still heavier moments and even some growled vocals that were completely absent on Altered State. Postones gives an insight in this notion: “I think you’re fair in saying that to be honest. Even though there’s some block out moments and some screams which we didn’t do on Altered State; Dan (Tompkins, vocals) would say that works and put them in, and you never wanted to say never in case it works properly. But we’ve always tried to go with what feels right, we never want to conform to anything, we just want to write music that feels right to us.”
Postones goes on to explain that, rather than being a calculated decision by the band, or even a committee, the creative process simply happens organically: “There isn’t even conversations or emails from management saying you have to write a song like this, its never been like that with this band. We put our foot down and that’s how we choose to do it. If we ever had to compromise any creative aspect of this band to appease the business I don’t think we would get as much enjoyment out of it.
“We enjoy playing, we enjoy touring and writing. We aren’t stubbornly trying to do anything , we just do what we like to do.”
WORDS BY CHRIS TIPPELL