Review Summary: Short but sweet.
This is a record of emotions, portrayed through the many different sections of this tiny three song EP. The first emotion faced is calmness, as the album enters with a somewhat haunting - though very peaceful - acoustic riff. We are then knocked back as the rest of the band joins the show, in a flurry of downtuned guitars and polyrhythms. This sort of backwards and forwards motion drives the album until the end, a mere 18 minutes later.
Consealing Fate is essentially one big build-up, slowly growing in size and intensity, until it peaks in 'Sunrise'. Very reminiscent of Isis, this band is perfect at creating an atmosphere, whether it be by synth, lead guitar, or just the overall quality of the bands playing. As the band comes in on the title track, you realise what this album is about - passion. The music is soulful and has no mindless shredding or showoff-y riffs. TesseracT seem to specialise the transitions from slow and heavy, to even slower and ambient. These changes are flawless, and ensure that the music always seems fresh, no matter how many times you listen to it. However, the heavy sections do get more intense thanks to some brilliant vocal and drum work, and the ambient parts become less and less common.
Consealing the Fate Part 1 is an excellent way to start off the album, and to start off this band's career. It showcases everything the band is capable of over this almost 9 minute epic. This is the slowest song on the album, with many changes from brutal to ambient, as well as a fantastic atmosphere. After building to the climax through many of these intensity changes, the song reaches a high point just past half way, allowing the vocalist to show off his scream, and the instrumental section to show us some technical riffs. Following this climax, the song dies down to a riff that is similar to the intro. April song starts off on a different note. After a heavy bass intro, clean guitars and vocals shine through to reveal a slightly softer song than the previous. This song has no particular climax, instead relying on constant riffage to make it to the end. An added extra on the end is the band laughing after roughly 30 seconds of silence. Sunrise is exactly as it's name suggests. It it constant in it's brutality and atmoshpere, being the heaviest as well as shortest song on the album. This track revisits several riffs from past songs, and is a nice way to not only sum up the album, but to transition into the LP that will soon be released.
TesseracT are clearly talented as a band, and while the music may not be that technical in terms of musicianship, the layering done by the band and the constant time changes and polyrhythms are a clear indicator. The musicians also stay true to their doom/post/math metal tags with some solid instrumentation and appropriate playing. If this album is a sign of things to come, then there are high hopes for TesseracT.
Pros:
- Solid songwriting
- Heavy riffs
- Good introduction to the band
Cons:
- Simplistic songwriting at times
