The Tesseract Megathread: Sonder Released

[gorthul]

The fanboy in me is exploding right now.
Ashe was surely a great singer, but imo Dan ist the best singer of the world right now. I just love him so much (no homo).
Guess his facebook posting some time ago, where he has written that he misses singing those old Tesseract tunes, was a direct hint to this.

 

[ZeroS1gnol]

I really don't know what to make of it...I highly prefer Ashe over Dan, because I feel he is a way better clean singer and has a sound that is more pleasant to the ears. On the other hand, Dan has better growly stuff going on.

What Im especially curious about is the reason for the departure. Did Ashe quit himself or did the band ask him to leave? Tesseract has a bad history when it comes to line up changes. I wonder if anyone remembers Dan's departure...no official statement whatsoever and voila, there's Elliot. That is just bad PR. That considered, why is Dan even getting back with them? Without the band explaining what's exactly going on it creates a sense of a band not knowing what to do with itself.

 

[Kurkkuviipale]

Ashe is a great singer, but I felt like on the latest record, his vocal lines were too filled. No real red line, every vocal line was harmonized which made the melodies less apparent. I just found the vocals really hard to grasp to.

Then again Dan is one of my favourite clean singers. Really high hopes for this!

 

[RoRo56]

Ash made Altered State his own and his studio work is unquestionable, but the two times I saw them live I thought he was terrible. I've watched hundred of live clips as well and I just don't think he could pull it off to the same standard live.

 

[Vigaren]

Ash's vocals in Altered State is jaw-droppingly good IMO. Sad that he went but taking Dan back is an great solution really

 

[Dayviewer]

What Im especially curious about is the reason for the departure. Did Ashe quit himself or did the band ask him to leave? Tesseract has a bad history when it comes to line up changes. I wonder if anyone remembers Dan's departure...no official statement whatsoever and voila, there's Elliot. That is just bad PR. That considered, why is Dan even getting back with them? Without the band explaining what's exactly going on it creates a sense of a band not knowing what to do with itself.

There really are a lot of questions behind this and I'm wondering about them as well.
From what I remember Dan first quit because the touring etc was becoming too much for him (one of the reasons anyway).
And Elliot left due to creative differences between him and the band, and it's the same with Ashe now, so maybe it's something with the writing process?

 

[Alfrer]

I just wish that Elliot would come back to Tesseract :'(

 

[Matthew]

Ashe + Tesseract was the band I've been waiting to hear for years. Altered State made them jump into competition as my favorite group. I've been on the lookout for heavy riffs and long, melodic vocals (or an opera singer!) since I got into music.

That said, I enjoyed One as well. I'll support them as long as they write tasty music.

 

[NSXTypeZero]

Dan is great... Ashe is great... it's all good

keep in mind Ashe joined TesseracT explicitly saying his personal band, Voices from the Fuselage, was NOT breaking up

Of course anyone would wager Ashe and the VftF guys are old, close friends... so as someone pointed out above, TesseracT goes through singers like it's the name of the game, so the fact that the band he's leaving will definitely land on their feet, and Ashe gets to bring a feverish following of fans back to Voices from the Fuselage... seems like a win-win




*edited Ashe's old band's name - good call

 

[bhakan]

One thing to keep in mind is Tesseracts entire sound has changed significantly since One. To those who are worried/hoping that this will sound like One, it probably won't, as Altered State is instrumentally a very different album than One, and that has nothing to do with vocalists. Also I doubt there will be screaming as Dan doesn't really scream in many of his projects anyway and I'm pretty sure most of the screams in One were left over vocal lines from their previous vocalist.

Dan is great... Ashe is great... it's all good

keep in mind Ashe joined TesseracT explicitly saying his personal band, First Signs of Frost, was NOT breaking up

Of course anyone would wager Ashe and the FSoF guys are old, close friends... so as someone pointed out above, TesseracT goes through singers like it's the name of the game, so the fact that the band he's leaving will definitely land on their feet, and Ashe gets to bring a feverish following of fans back to First Signs of Frost... seems like a win-win

First Signs of Frost is Dan's old band, which has long ago broken up. I think Voices from the Fuselage is what you're thinking of.

 

[NSXTypeZero]

One thing to keep in mind is Tesseracts entire sound has changed significantly since One. To those who are worried/hoping that this will sound like One, it probably won't, as Altered State is instrumentally a very different album than One, and that has nothing to do with vocalists. Also I doubt there will be screaming as Dan doesn't really scream in many of his projects anyway and I'm pretty sure most of the screams in One were left over vocal lines from their previous vocalist.


First Signs of Frost is Dan's old band, which has long ago broken up. I think Voices from the Fuselage is what you're thinking of.

YES I was! Thank you.

 

[Jonathan20022]

One thing to keep in mind is Tesseracts entire sound has changed significantly since One. To those who are worried/hoping that this will sound like One, it probably won't, as Altered State is instrumentally a very different album than One, and that has nothing to do with vocalists. Also I doubt there will be screaming as Dan doesn't really scream in many of his projects anyway and I'm pretty sure most of the screams in One were left over vocal lines from their previous vocalist.


First Signs of Frost is Dan's old band, which has long ago broken up. I think Voices from the Fuselage is what you're thinking of.

Very evident by the fact that Elliot's audition also contained AS material. Meaning they've been sitting on those songs potentially for quite some time. The 3rd album is going to be definitely different I think.

 

[ambler3]

I'm okay with this..kind of, Ashe was a great singer. Was pretty impressed by them live, even if they used a fair bit of backing tracks. I'll be happy, as long as they continue with Altered state style writing, or even progress up from that.

 

[RagtimeDandy]

As long as Dan has improved past sounding extremely whiney, I'm cool with it. Also his monotone screams on the first album were very off putting to me (if someone wants to provide examples of him improving...yay!)

I found Ashe's tonality and approach to be absolutely flawless in conjunction with the instruments on Altered State. Bummed to see him go, but if their evolution is as dramatic from One to A.S., who knows what Dan can bring to the table. I am a bit skeptical though honestly...

 

[CloudAC]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pIL7UsNXmAo

Well here is Dan's latest work, the single for Skyharbors upcoming album. Take from it what you will, but I am super excited for this album as well as what he does with TesseracT.

 

[JosephAOI]

There really are a lot of questions behind this and I'm wondering about them as well.
From what I remember Dan first quit because the touring etc was becoming too much for him (one of the reasons anyway).
And Elliot left due to creative differences between him and the band, and it's the same with Ashe now, so maybe it's something with the writing process?

I was wondering this too, because I always felt like Ashe was literally the best fit for Tesseract. So I asked Acle on facebook if it was because the band wanted screaming back in their music, but apparently that's not it. Maybe Ashe wants to perform more energetic music? Tesseract is a lot more of a chill metal band.

 

[bhakan]

I was wondering this too, because I always felt like Ashe was literally the best fit for Tesseract. So I asked Acle on facebook if it was because the band wanted screaming back in their music, but apparently that's not it. Maybe Ashe wants to perform more energetic music? Tesseract is a lot more of a chill metal band.

I really doubt Dan will bring screaming back. If you listen to old demos, most of the screaming parts from One were vocal lines written by their old vocalist Abi, it seems like pretty much all the vocals Dan wrote were clean, so I see no reason why he would bring back screaming.

 

[kamello]

quoting Amos

What made you choose to drop the screaming vocals?

It was personal preference. As long as TesseracT has been going we have talked about not needing the screaming vocals. It almost sounded monotonous even for some of our favourite bands like Meshuggah. We were more interested in the music rather than the vocals. Not to take anything away from Jens (Kidman, Meshuggah vocalist) he adds a layer to their music which is very powerful but personally we prefer clean vocals. We love melody and love classic rock and music before the time of screamed vocals. When we were a new band we felt the pressure to include screaming vocals to be accepted. Now we are somewhat established we felt it was time to move away from that. I did a lot of the heavy vocals when Dan was in the band and when we did shows and I would perform them it didn’t feel right. We toured with bands like Protest The Hero and Devin Townsend and when they do it sounds awesome but it didn’t feel right for us. That being said if we did write a new song and it felt right we may use screams.

random: new emoticon, yay!

 

[goherpsNderp]

Some things to consider when comparing the singers and One vs AS:

-One had a lot of material that TesseracT had been playing and tweaking since the myspace days. they were altered and spruced up for the album, and some of the lyrics were reused while others Dan used his own. some of it was new material, but it was likely done before Dan joined. (just my guess based on the studio diaries and what not we got leading up to Dan's reveal)

-Dan was tasked with adapting to material that was already for the most part close to final. He had to fit his lyrics and singing into the moods and emotions of the music as it was.

-AS was (AFAIK) all new material, and Ashe was likely able to write songs and vocals along with the band with the music itself. This is pretty evident when you listen to the tracks and see how they leave more room for the vocals themselves, whereas a lot of the 'oldies' on One didn't. either they weren't written originally with a singer in mind or they weren't written with Dan's vocals.

-So technically speaking, a new album that's all fresh new material written alongside Dan should allow him to gel more with the music than he did in One. so those that liked Ashe and AS, you might want to give Dan a chance with the new one as he'll likely benefit from the same production dynamics that Ashe did.

 

[Kurkkuviipale]

Some things to consider when comparing the singers and One vs AS:

-One had a lot of material that TesseracT had been playing and tweaking since the myspace days. they were altered and spruced up for the album, and some of the lyrics were reused while others Dan used his own. some of it was new material, but it was likely done before Dan joined. (just my guess based on the studio diaries and what not we got leading up to Dan's reveal)

-Dan was tasked with adapting to material that was already for the most part close to final. He had to fit his lyrics and singing into the moods and emotions of the music as it was.

-AS was (AFAIK) all new material, and Ashe was likely able to write songs and vocals along with the band with the music itself. This is pretty evident when you listen to the tracks and see how they leave more room for the vocals themselves, whereas a lot of the 'oldies' on One didn't. either they weren't written originally with a singer in mind or they weren't written with Dan's vocals.

-So technically speaking, a new album that's all fresh new material written alongside Dan should allow him to gel more with the music than he did in One. so those that liked Ashe and AS, you might want to give Dan a chance with the new one as he'll likely benefit from the same production dynamics that Ashe did.

Good points! Gotta clear out that AS wasn't all new material, I think the intro for Excile was originally used for Sunrise (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vV4E3bOOLfg) and there are probably more that I just don't know. I do get the point nevertheless though.