Oxford O2 Academy: Tesseract 10th Feb

Imagine being inside a TV set, surrounded by lights, sound and visuals, completely immersed in the waves of entertainment washing over you, but there’s no voices just a film moving past you with music and lights.

This is what watching support act Nordic Giant felt like. The post rock duo formed in 2010 bring something completely new to the scene, with no vocals and independent films on large screens accompanying every song, their performance was almost cinematic, and their set was enough to make you forget you were in Oxford’s dark and sticky O2 Academy.

Second support act The Contortionist took the wonder ignited in the crowd and changed it to charged excitement, injecting a dirty, heavy and excitable metal tone into the atmosphere that was well needed. After a few mosh inducing tracks the audience seemed to have warmed up and thus the perfect atmosphere of violent excitement and melodic wonder was created for TesseracT.

TesseracT themselves are a bit of an enigma in the metal scene, said to be one of the pioneers in bringing djent to the world of progressive metal and known for straying away from the ‘norms’ of the genre their music alone sets a very different standard for their performance. Gone are the harsher screams and growls associated with metal (left on their last album along with the previous vocalist) and in are the spacey clean vocals, pair this with the melodic ambient sounds and ‘dirty’ breakdowns and you can see how their music is treading new ground.

The band went from strength to strength confidently playing crowd favourites like Concealing Fate, Part 2: Deception and Nocturne without a flaw, seamlessly blending new and old songs alike and the audience went wild for it.

TesseracT took control of the crowd with their performance, the audience, who almost seemed to know when a slow melodic song would play next, would transform into a swaying sea who’s waves crashed in time to the music which added to the almost eerie ambience of the bands slower tracks; this provided a stark contrast to the heavy tunes when the crowd would swell and dissolve into an aggressive but well timed mosh pit. The band have done something incredible, not only have they managed to create a new sound and style but something a lot more unexpected with their shows, a new concert experience and it’s refreshing in an over saturated genre to say the least.

The focus was on the music in this performance with little interference from newly regained vocalist Daniel Tompkins, which added to the performance like quality of the gig, as well as an adding an air of mystery to the already spacey atmosphere. TesseracT were an experience, a powerful, impressive and beautiful, a word not often associated with the heavy metal genre, experience.

TesseracT at Oxford’s O2 Academy was an experience that will not be forgotten, rather than just a gig it was a spectacular showcasing of the bands talent and a homage to the fact that pushing boundaries can and does work if done well. They succeeded in transforming a small dark room into an atmospheric, ambient sea of music filled movement and appreciation, so If you’re looking for a gig with a difference, one that will leave you in awe at the sheer talent of a band, I suggest you check TesseracT out on one of their remaining UK tour dates because I promise you, it will be worth it.

#music #gig #review #progressive