TESSERACT: War Of Being (DJENT): review / opinion to read on Music Waves

TesseracT are back this autumn. Their album "War of Being" may have taken five years to mature since its predecessor, but it's nonetheless the perfect prototype of the album one would propose to a neophyte discovering djent. Except that, while all the ingredients characterizing the genre are indeed there, it would be reductive to pigeonhole the band into it. Worse still, it would be dishonest, as it wouldn't do justice to the band's boundless creativity.

Admittedly, TesseracT is one of the forerunners of the genre, along with Meshuggah and Periphery, but you really don't need such benchmarks to appreciate the little gem that is "War Of Being", a pure condensation of energy with complex structures that are always perfectly integrated into atmospheric layers or well thought-out drum grooves that are never overly demonstrative. Literature doesn't have a monopoly on oxymorons, and TesseracT proves it by marrying convoluted themes with soaring phrasing. Some will see the audacity in this, others won't, but what does it matter after all, as long as the band plays its music with authenticity?

The eponymous track "War Of Being" is perhaps the best example of this, containing what djent does best. It's all there: big metal riffs, technique, unexpected structures, reverb-filled air phases, regularly alternating screamed and clear vocals. The rhythm section is definitely the band's mainstay, laying the foundations for a convoluted music that you'll get to grips with after a few listens, or even quicker if you're familiar with the genre, or better, with the band. Speaking of pillars, TesseracT has been made up of the same musicians for over fifteen years, with the exception of the singer who has changed slightly, but Daniel Tompkins has been behind the microphone for ten years already. This stability is remarkable and a credit to them.

It's hard to get bored with "War Of Being", such is the richness of the album. It's also hard to do anything else while you're listening, so much so that you want to follow the story being told. This is also the weak point of this kind of music: at the slightest loss of concentration, you get lost in the meanders of a sometimes tortuous music. - Official website

TESSERACT

WAR OF BEING

KSCOPE

DJENT