TesseracT

TesseracT gained attention last year for a tantalizing EP (Concealing Fate) and a live slot opening for Devin Townsend. New debut album One repackages the six interwoven Concealing Fate tracks with five additional songs, offering a more complete picture of the UK act's impressive reach and taste. On one level, TesseracT perform a type of tech-prog, with thick, jagged, almost Meshuggah-y rhythms. But One is also packed with catchy riffs, laced with subtly coercive melodic lines and vocal harmonies. Harsh, verging on screamo vocals provide another accenting texture, but they're the album's only weak link, threatening to undermine the otherwise complex maturity of the multilayered whole. There's no discernible break between the six-part mid-section of the record and the surrounding material, which is characteristic of TesseracT's overall sound. One is less about individual songs than it is a constantly shifting sonic picture as captivatingly ambivalent as the emotion and phenomena titles like "Deception," "Epiphany" and "Sunrise" collectively invoke.