I'm a surrogate...I'm archetypal and itinerant...
Tesseract (sometimes styled as TesseracT) are a British progressive metal band from Milton Keynes, England, and are often credited as being one of the pioneering bands of the Djent genre and have over time grown to be one of more well known progressive metal acts to emerge in The New '10s. They are also known for having repeated singer changes through the years.Formed with a complete line-up in 2007 after several years of demoing by guitarist Acle Kahney, the band went one to release their fist album One in 2011. However, vocalist Daniel Tompkins left the band later that year in august and was replaced by Elliot Coleman, whom the band went one to record the Perspective EP with. Elliot Coleman departed from the group mid 2012 and in October the band revealed a new song, "Nocturne" with Ashe O'Hara as their new singer. Their sophomore follow-up Altered State was released in 2013 and met with universal acclaim from both fans and critics, with some major reviewers calling it one of the best progressive metal albums of all time.
After touring around the world for the next year, it was announced that Ashe O'Hara had amicably parted ways with the band and that Daniel from One had rejoined, along with news that the band had started work on their much anticipated third album. Polaris was released later in 2015, with the EP Errai being released around the same time the following year in 2016.
Discography:
- One (2011)
- Perspective (2012) - EP
- Altered State (2013)
- Polaris (2015)
- Errai (2016) - EP
- Sonder (2018)
- Regrowth (2022) - EP
- War of Being (2023)
The band contains examples of the following tropes:
- Ambient: The influence from the genre can be heard throughout the band's work. Very noticeable on Polaris which has had their softest and most ambient material to date. Errai falls even more so under this genre, being an ambient reimagining of several songs from Polaris.
- Arc Symbol: A tesseract, as you can tell.
- Celebrity Resemblance: Amos Williams is often said to resemble a long haired Hugh Grant.
- Concept Album: Altered State is about the scientific and philosophical process of change, and is broken into four separate movements, each about a difference aspect of change.
- Polaris is also a loosely based concept about nature of universal truth and how there is no human concept that could be considered absolute truth.
- Cover Version: "Dream Brother"
- Darker and Edgier: The charity EP Regrowth is this compared to the rest of their more recent discography. This is because both songs on it are re-workings of old ideas that Acle had that pre-date even One.
- Djent: One of the most well-liked and respected bands of the genre.
- Epic Rocking: "Eden" (9:03), "Exile" (8:50), "Acceptance" (8:33), "Singularity" (8:20), "Dystopia" (6:51) and "Beneath my Skin/Mirror Image" (11:21). And that's not even getting into the six-part "Concealing Fate", which in total goes up to twenty-seven minutes.
- Harsh Vocals: Dan usually uses them sparingly. Ashe didn't use them at all.
- Instrumentals: "Epiphany" and "Calabi-Yau".
- Lead Bassist: Amos is a type C and D. His is an important song writer, is the band's spokesman who appears the most in interviews, and is also a qualified sound engineer and plays a large part in the mixing and production of their albums. His bass playing is also very standout in metal/djent, a very funky style of percussive playing inspired by the likes of Victor Wooten, Marcus Miller, and Flea.
- Also arguably a type B, since he does growled vocals during their live shows.
- Lighter and Softer: Each album since their debut (and that compared to their earlier demos) has been softer than the one before it. Not that it has necessarily been a bad thing. Also this to Djent as a whole.
- The two EP's, Perspective and Errai, consist of acoustic and ambient remakes of select songs from One and Polaris respectively, and are much softer than the originals.
- Long-Runner Line-up: Apart from having changed singers six times, all of the original band members have remained together since forming in 2007.
- The current lineup of the band will properly reach this status in 2024, should it stick around.
- Loudness War: Averted for the most part as all three of their albums are a DR7 (the vinyl and surround-sound versions are even higher) and have very little clipping compared to most modern metal releases (except for One which has a few clipping issues).
- Metal Scream: They abandoned this trope during the period Ashe O'Hara was their vocalist.
- Miniscule Rocking: "Epiphany" clocks in at 1:29.
- Mood Whiplash: The sudden change from "Perfection" (a emotional melancholic song) to "Epiphany" (an extremely short but angry, aggressive song) and then back to "Origin" (a sad, moody song like "Perfection") definitely counts as this.
- Piss-Take Rap: Averted surprisingly with the end of "Utopia", where it is actually well done and fits that part of the song.
- Progressive Metal
- Revolving Door Band: In the case of their singers whom they have had five of and have changed six times as of Dan rejoining. Averted with the rest of the members.
- Self-Backing Vocalist: Dan does this a lot. Ashe did too, when he was the band's vocalist.
- Sexophone On "Calabi-Yau", performed by Chris Barretto of ex-Periphery and ex-Monuments fame.
- Soprano and Gravel: Dan is both. Dan and Amos are this sometimes during live shows too, with Dan as the soprano and Amos as the gravel.
- Subdued Section: A lot of their songs have these, usually to add to the mood and atmosphere, create tension, or transition into another song or section.
- Surreal Music Video: Most of the music videos they have released could probably fall under this definition.
- Uncommon Time: Shows up quiet often throughout their discography with Eden
being a prime example. - Vocal Evolution: Dan has gained a lot of range and power in his harsh vocals since re-joining the band. His clean vocals have also become purer and more mature-sounding that they were on One.
