From First To Last's new album, Dead Trees, comes out April 28th via Sumerian Records and can be preordered here. View the album cover below.
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From First to Last have announced a few tour dates with Dayshell
Photo by Nolly
Spencer Sotelo of Periphery will be the new lead vocalist for post hardcore band From First To Last. View the video announcement over at AltPress
The band Tesseract brings a well done progressive metal/ambient style to the table with their release “Altered State”.
With their funky instrumentation and ambient intertwining of vocals and airy guitar, they remind the listener of a sound not far off from Periphery or Substructure. Although Tesseract is in the ball park of these bands, they still separate themselves from the pack. The most notable aspect of this record would be the vocals. The constantly harmonized and heavily reverberated melodies delve the listener into the immerse sound that Tesseract constantly drives throughout the album.
Although the album is lengthy, it lets the listener fully drown themselves in the surrounding style of the album. With creative mixes of distorted breakdowns with cleaned up and delayed leads, the band proves its originality with their carefully constructed songs like “Singularity”. This song adequately ravels the album into one as well as creates its own place among the other songs. It keeps the album flowing into the closer “Embers” which leaves the listener satisfied and itching to restart the journey again.
This album has a solidified style that even pokes out from the rest of this genre, but lacks in one category. With this type of sound, bands like Periphery and Substructure deliver enormously in the aspects of heaviness and off time instrument breaks. But with Tesseract, they seem to fall short of the all too anticipated mind blowing instrumentation. The instruments act as a perfect support to the vocals, but when the melodies stop, so does the immersion and excitement. Each instrument break leaves the listener almost waiting until the vocals come up again. The band definitely makes a good effort towards recreating these important parts of the songs, but doesn’t deliver as hard as other bands. What Tesseract does best is their creation of ambiance and immersion with only a few guitar tracks and effects. This aspect makes up for their lack of instrumental entertainment.
Overall this album should fall into the same category as Periphery, but not stay attached to that band. They diversify themselves well enough and with a certain style that keeps them interesting without being unoriginal. Whether the lyrics are of a concept or not, it takes the listener through an aural journey, a rarity among a world of monotonous breakdowns and monotone vocals. This album expresses many emotions and keeps the listener entranced in an almost hypnotic state. These qualities are what differentiate a great album from a revolutionary album. With a future ahead of them, if Tesseract can master their instrumentation then they can master the genre itself. Even with its flaws, this is the type of album that expresses what music really is — an art form.
Rating: 9/10
- Nic Cheatle
We’ll be interviewing Periphery and Veil of Maya next week; does anyone have any questions for them?
According to the above magazine ad; Periphery’s new album comes out July 3rd and will feature a guest solo from Dream Theater’s John Petrucci.
This doesn’t bode well with Spencer Sotelo though; from his Formspring:
“Bad planning on somebody’s end. We were just as surprised as anyone else when we saw that revolver had put the release date out there when no official announcement has been made.”
I’ll be honest; I used to hate Periphey because of Spencer’s vocals on their debut self-titled. After their 2011 release of the Icarus EP, I quickly changed my stance. Having a chance to catch them on their headline tour with The Human Abstract, I was blown away by Spencer’s ability to hit high notes live. The band is currently in Europe in a support slot for Dream Theater and took time to answer some questions.
Spencer:
How do you go about writing vocal melodies and hooks over such intricate progressions, timings, etc. I can imagine approaching instrumentals with lyrics to fit into them can be quite daunting. Is it just yourself writing them or do the rest of the band have a say?
For the new album, I wrote all of the vocal melodies and lyrics. ive just gotten used to the band’s sound over the past 2 years and have adapted to writing over the complexity of the music.
How do you ensure that your influences simply “influence” the writing on your albums and not affect the uniqueness of your sound? With that said, do you feel that you’ve stayed true to your own unique sound as much as possible on the last album?
Since I didn’t have much of a hand in writing the vocals for the last album due to time constraints, you can expect to hear a different approach to all the singing and screaming on this next record.
In your live performances, as soon as your start screaming or growling, you have a much harder time singing more demanding vocal parts. Eventually by the end of the set it sounds like you find it almost impossible to sing higher notes. What impact has this had on how you arrange your set list, and how you take care of your voice outside of your performance?
You may be watching videos where my voice is suffering from not having enough rest or I may have been sick. Screaming has never hindered me being able to hit higher notes.
What made you decide that you would do two records in one year as most bands would simply ride the tide on the one album?
We are starting on the next record after completing this one we are currently working on. We are not making any promises about when the second one will be out. If it is finished this year then we will release it, but we are definitely not rushing it by any means.
Misha:
State your name and profession please.
Misha Mansoor, Dark Mage
What’s your view on the whole “djent” label/genre? It’s doing really well as it has spawned a lot of bands. (even though it’s just a guitar sound)
I think that people aren’t entirely sure what it is, and neither am I. I write music the same way I always have, and if people want to call it that, then that’s fine by me. It has grouped us with a lot of really cool upcoming bands, so that’s definitely a perk, but our approach has always been progressive: do whatever you want, so long as it sounds good.
How do you build the songs for what finally makes the album? Do you come up with a story that allows you to imagine a soundtrack to it or does something you play just inspire you?
It’s just ideas that come out of nowhere, sometimes they become songs, sometimes they dont. I dont really have much control over the creative process, when it happens, it happens!
How has it been with the label for you guys? A lot of bands have been saying very positive things about the label, but some bands have also spoken negatively of it. Ash himself is very outspoken. How has it been working with Sumerian for you guys?
We work great with them. Ash and Shawn are excellent and innovative businessmen and i think Sumerian are one of the few labels who are looking at ways to work with the current music industry and getting creative with it.
Have there ever been any incidents in the studio where you felt you couldn’t work with the band? (ex. fighting over every little detail?
We all actually get along quite well in the studio, if there are issues we discuss things and find a compromise where everyone is happy.
What are your thoughts on the continual volume increases in the industry, where music has just gotten louder, or more crushed, at the expense of dynamic range?
I think that there should be no general rule about anything when it comes to music. If people want to make louder music, they should be allowed to do so, if they want to keep it soft, they can do that too. I think it’s silly to force opinions on things that are so subjective.
How was it working with Veil of Maya on their upcoming release?
They are good friends of mine and it was just like hanging out, watching movies, having a good time while making an album. The vibe was awesome and the whole thing went by so fast somehow even though we pretty much wrote the album at my place, really proud of that album!
Last question; Will we ever see a full band version of my favorite Bulb track, Heliovice? How many Bulb tracks have turned into Periphery songs?
Perhaps, the best Bulb tracks become Periphery tracks, it just has to fit the vibe and make the cut.