TesseracT - Concealing Fate

[ze kink]

Fellsilent isn't a band anymore, but the main writers now have a new band called Monuments.

IIRC Browne has been doing Monuments' stuff a long time already, and it was called Elements before? So it's not a solo project anymore?

Ah, it seems like Fellsilent has indeed broken up and Monuments is now a real band. Cool, since I always liked the stuff...

 

[Erik Monsonis]

I'm actually liking the music. It's not the kind of music you fall in love at a first listen.
Still not digging the mix, hate the kick, snare is ok, guitars are paper thin... I actually love the clean guitars.

 

[genome]

Yeah, the mix isn't great, but the music fucking rules!

Bass is too loud, or at least too middy. The whole mix doesn't really sparkle, seems a little flat. I assume they'll fix that for the full length.

 

[dcb]

to me personally fredrik thordendals special defects started it all.
using ambient stuff over djent. thats his and meshuggahs signature sound (nothings spasm for example).

while all the djent stuff seems quiet original, in fact its just a consequence of what fredrik started back then.
special defects and meshuggah were probably the greatest step in modern metalin the 90ies AND 00's.
it was a huge inspiration for me back then personally and obviously for tesseract,periphery etc.

and : thats cool! i have great respect for these bands! but i dont get why people on boards
hold these guys up and say: they invented something new which infact was invented buy some guys in sweden ;-)
(do i sound like a meshuggah fanboi?? haha)

but now id like to hear bands using this new skill and making music that really grabs me... meshuggah were highly emotional,
because of their lyrics and how they really pull you intotheir music...
everything i hear these days seems clichee and forced together - especially the vocals.
but also maybe its just not my taste...

take gojira for example : they name meshuggah as an influence, (while its not that obvious), they make music that really takes you on a journey while
still being very original.

but back to topic : production isweak... same with peripherys stuff...
why dont these bands work with joey ? ;-)

 

[Josh Burgess]

to me personally fredrik thordendals special defects started it all.
using ambient stuff over djent. thats his and meshuggahs signature sound (nothings spasm for example).

while all the djent stuff seems quiet original, in fact its just a consequence of what fredrik started back then.
special defects and meshuggah were probably the greatest step in modern metalin the 90ies AND 00's.
it was a huge inspiration for me back then personally and obviously for tesseract,periphery etc.

and : thats cool! i have great respect for these bands! but i dont get why people on boards
hold these guys up and say: they invented something new which infact was invented buy some guys in sweden ;-)
(do i sound like a meshuggah fanboi?? haha)

but now id like to hear bands using this new skill and making music that really grabs me... meshuggah were highly emotional,
because of their lyrics and how they really pull you intotheir music...
everything i hear these days seems clichee and forced together - especially the vocals.
but also maybe its just not my taste...

take gojira for example : they name meshuggah as an influence, (while its not that obvious), they make music that really takes you on a journey while
still being very original.

but back to topic : production isweak... same with peripherys stuff...
why dont these bands work with joey ? ;-)

Meshuggah hasn't really ever done much of the sparkly, clean ambient guitar layers thing... they have clean sections, but 95% of the time it was Holdsworth mimicing. You know, the liquidy smooth, fluid fusion stuff...

Chimpspanner, Periphery, Tesseract, Cloudkicker, etc. really put way more emphasis on the ambient layers and use much more layers in general. They all definitely do the jazz fusion bits too, but the ambient sections are more like the kind of stuff you hear from instrumental post rock bands like Mogwai, Explosions in the Sky, Godspeed You Black Emperor, etc.

 

[dcb]

Meshuggah hasn't really ever done much of the sparkly, clean ambient guitar layers thing... they have clean sections, but 95% of the time it was Holdsworth mimicing. You know, the liquidy smooth, fluid fusion stuff...

Chimpspanner, Periphery, Tesseract, Cloudkicker, etc. really put way more emphasis on the ambient layers and use much more layers in general. They all definitely do the jazz fusion bits too, but the ambient sections are more like the kind of stuff you hear from instrumental post rock bands like Mogwai, Explosions in the Sky, Godspeed You Black Emperor, etc.

i remember tons of stuff over djent on thordendals
defects not just chimey axe fx presets, thats true.
but the idea (to me) is the same. having a djent riff and layering
stuff on top.

dont forget about dredg and radiohead, to me they are kings of delaypedals! ;-)

i think this ambient stuff was developed in parallel in a lot of genres beacuse of daws and live backingtracks....
i did stuff like that with my band, when we started in 2001 till today. being huge fans of meshuggah and dredg but we are more a rock band id say.


ill have to lsiten to that stuff you mentioned, i totally lost interest in all these bands when they started sounding alike...

 

[BrettT]

but back to topic : production isweak... same with peripherys stuff...
why dont these bands work with joey ? ;-)

Ya...I'm keen on hearing what Joey would do with a band that can actually play their asses off and write interesting music.

 

[Josh Burgess]

Ya...I'm keen on hearing what Joey would do with a band that can actually play their asses off and write interesting music.

I'm sure Joey could put out something awesome working with any of these bands, but really, it would be nice if ANYBODY who really knows what they're doing and consistently puts out great sounding stuff could work with one of these bands. I would love to hear Veil of Maya, Born of Osiris, After The Burial, Periphery, Tesseract, etc. put out a pro sounding modern metal album without any blatant flaws dragging the mix down. I like all of these bands, but the mixes are always disappointing.

Most of these djent bands all take the DIY approach, and they're all copying each other, buying and using Axe-FX for guitars, using Superior Drummer for drums, and ending up with mediocre sounding albums filled with great music. It would be awesome to get great music AND a great mix. Unfortunately, it seems to happen very rarely...

There's nothing wrong with the DIY approach. I know cash is tight, and I fully support it if the people know what they're doing... but the majority don't. Take the time to learn & buy the gear needed to get it done or let somebody else who knows what they're doing better than you do handle mixing so you can focus on your music. I know a lot of these guys are talented musicians and want to have control over EVERYTHING, but they could really benefit from an outside perspective.

Also, it seems like quite a few of them are buying the Axe-FX as a status symbol. They see their peers and musicians they look up to (who may not know anything at all about mixing/production) using things like the Axe-FX, and so they think they must have the same gear to be taken seriously or be considered part of the same clique...

It doesn't have to be like that though. These bands don't have to continue copying off of each other and repeatedly spawning mediocrity. I would say Within The Ruins and The Contortionist are both bands from the same scene/same genre of music, and the recent albums by both of these bands (Exoplanet by The Contortionist and especially Invade by Within The Ruins) are quite a bit better sounding than what you usually hear. No Axe-FX, no Superior Drummer, no DIY mixing/production, and the results are GOOD.

I know these kinds of bands have a ton of younger/less demanding fans (cough, sevenstring.org, cough) that couldn't care less about how the albums sound, but I think there are a lot of people out there like me (probably a good amount of them here on this forum) who really genuinely like a lot of this music, but are disappointed by the mediocre mixes & endless copying of fads.

 

[BrettT]

I'm sure Joey could put out something awesome working with any of these bands, but really, it would be nice if ANYBODY who really knows what they're doing and consistently puts out great sounding stuff could work with one of these bands. I would love to hear Veil of Maya, Born of Osiris, After The Burial, Periphery, Tesseract, etc. put out a pro sounding modern metal album without any blatant flaws dragging the mix down. I like all of these bands, but the mixes are always disappointing.

Most of these djent bands all take the DIY approach, and they're all copying each other, buying and using Axe-FX for guitars, using Superior Drummer for drums, and ending up with mediocre sounding albums filled with great music. It would be awesome to get great music AND a great mix. Unfortunately, it seems to happen very rarely...

There's nothing wrong with the DIY approach. I know cash is tight, and I fully support it if the people know what they're doing... but the majority don't. Take the time to learn & buy the gear needed to get it done or let somebody else who knows what they're doing better than you do handle mixing so you can focus on your music. I know a lot of these guys are talented musicians and want to have control over EVERYTHING, but they could really benefit from an outside perspective.

Also, it seems like quite a few of them are buying the Axe-FX as a status symbol. They see their peers and musicians they look up to (who may not know anything at all about mixing/production) using things like the Axe-FX, and so they think they must have the same gear to be taken seriously or be considered part of the same clique...

It doesn't have to be like that though. These bands don't have to continue copying off of each other and repeatedly spawning mediocrity. I would say Within The Ruins and The Contortionist are both bands from the same scene/same genre of music, and the recent albums by both of these bands (Exoplanet by The Contortionist and especially Invade by Within The Ruins) are quite a bit better sounding than what you usually hear. No Axe-FX, no Superior Drummer, no DIY mixing/production, and the results are GOOD.

I know these kinds of bands have a ton of younger/less demanding fans (cough, sevenstring.org, cough) that couldn't care less about how the albums sound, but I think there are a lot of people out there like me (probably a good amount of them here on this forum) who really genuinely like a lot of this music, but are disappointed by the mediocre mixes & endless copying of fads.

Couldn't have put it better myself.

 

[ATLA]

i spoke with amos for a bit last night.. he said that the entire album is recorded and will be released through century media in due time. they didnt want to just come straight out with an album so they went the ep route. the album will have a different mix/master obviously. my friend spoke to acle and apparently the guitars are 100% pod.

 

[Sickan]

Just recieved the CD.
I can't fucking believe how amazing they are.
The clean guitars, the snare and delays are insane, a little dissapointed in the kick and bass tho.

 

[guitarguru777]

Saw them in Vegas Saturday

http://www.ultimatemetal.com/forum/off-topic-tavern/633382-tesseract-live-vegas.html

 

[coreysMonster]

oh shit, I just found the teaser on the website :O

Holy balls the singing sends so many shivers down my spine!
And I can actually hear all the little layers now that it's not some crappy youtube mp3 download.
Cant wait for the CD to arrive!

 

[GarethSE]

Musically, it gets a big resounding "meh" from me. Just sounds dull. So many bands have done ambience mixed with churning, mechanical rhythms, and so many of them have done it better.
Meshuggah themselves have already seemed to have reached the epitomy of the genre and been in a slow, steady decline since then, unless whatever they do next redeems them, but I can't see it happening.
Catch Thirty-Three had this whole robot killing itself violently mood and feel to it, the music was so mechanical that it no longer sounded like human beings playing it (and rather than this being an insult like I'd level at something like The Devil Wears Prada, where it's over-edited, it's a compliment seeing as its an artistic choice rather than it being the result of shitty musicians.)
That album evolved at a perfect pace. It hypnotizes you then takes you on a journey of steadily increasing intensity until the weight is almost too much to bear. This just.. meanders and tries to think it's clever or hypnotic for doing so.
I dunno, too little too late for me. I would've been ON this shit a good 3-4 years ago, back when the Periphery "EP" was still supposedly coming soon (back when Veredika was still doing vocals for them, before they turned into a pop act) but 3-4 years is a long, LONG fucking time and I've heard too much new music that does far more interesting things than these guys have accomplished to still find it in me to care anymore.

On the bright side, the snare rules, the mix generally kicks ass and you guys are all too fucking wrapped up in digital cleanliness and inhuman perfection.
Being audio engineers should allow us to get MORE wrapped up in the big picture, not less so. Yeah, you gotta pay attention to the finer detail, too, but the only thing this band really excels at is painting a picture with the mix and you guys are worrying about the bass being too middy? Please...

 

[FloridaRolf]

Well I agree that raw sounds rule but the mix for the first concealing fate "demo" sounded just 999 times better than this.

 

[Sickan]

Gareth, we need to have a talk.

 

[GarethSE]

Sickan, I didn't tell you about the experience I had with hallucinogenic drugs and Catch Thirty-Three did I?

 

[Ambivalent]

Sickan, I didn't tell you about the experience I had with hallucinogenic drugs and Catch Thirty-Three did I?

I've oddly enough had that same experience. That was crazy intense.

Afterwards I watched Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs.

 

[GarethSE]

It made me walk funny.

 

[coreysMonster]

Should've known you'd pack out the comparison to Catch 33 with this, Gareth

However, even though I haven't heard all of the album (stupid spotify doesnt work in germany), but what I HAVE heard comes from an entirely different place than Catch 33. It's not trying to be the mechanical machine of doom that the meshuggah album was, it's... well to put it in pictures:

Catch 33 is this:

And Conceiling Fate is this:

I wouldn't call conceiling fate hypnotic, but more, like, dreamy and etherial.