The small venue John Dee (with a capacity of 400 people) was sold out for this special night of the new wave of progressive music better known as Djent. Both bands are relatively “new” within the music scene as they were both formed in 2007. There are huge differences between the bands as well as some similarities but there’s no doubt that they are a good match for this tour.
Animals as Leaders
First on stage were Animals as Leaders, an instrumental band from Washington D.C. They blend different genres into their music like Progressive Metal and Jazz Fusion. At the same time they are a trio without a bass player. Often that is a combination that doesn’t work but Tosin Abasi and Javier Reyes both play eight string guitars, which gives them a fairly deep range, and they often take turns covering the bottom range, as well as looping what they play and play new stuff over that. Completed with keyboards and samples on tape and Matt Garstka’s incredible drum skills their music becomes precise and deadly as a lethal injection.
Animals as Leaders played songs from all three of their albums with most weight put on their latest release The Joy of Motion (2014). Their music is extremely technical and their playing was flawless. At the same time they seemed to have a good time up there. Tosin even commented on the crowd’s politeness during the show: “You guys are so well mannered. It must be a Norwegian thing. After the Viking stuff you were like ‘ah fuck it, we’ll just chill out’.”
This was arguably THE highlight of the evening. Even before TesseracT entered the stage everyone knew it would be hard to compete. But after all it’s not a competition.
Setlist: Tooth and Claw / Tempting Time / Wave of Babies / Ka$cade / Lippincott / Air Chrysalis / The Price of Everything and the Value of Nothing / Behaving Badly / Espera / Physical Education / The Woven Web / Weightless / CAFO
TesseracT
One big difference between TesseracT and Animals as Leaders is that TesseracT isn’t an instrumental band. Another is that TesseracT’s musical experimentations are more limited, they don’t go as broad experimenting with other genres as Animals as Leaders does. This is one of the reasons why they fit the bill so well; they complement each other and the crowd gets a more varied show.
In June TesseracT announced the return of vocalist Daniel Tompkins. Ashe O’Hara who sang on TesseracT’s sophomore album Altered State (2013) is a very different vocalist and his voice is much softer than Tompkins’. TesseracT opened with the three first songs from said album and it quickly became evident that O’Hara was no major loss. Tompkins is arguably the best vocalist TesseracT has ever had.
TesseracT also play very technical music but the technicality lies first and foremost in the polyrhythmic riffs not the melodies. Most of the songs have beautiful atmospheric layers and Tompkins switches between clean and harsh vocals on top. On a few occasions bass player Amos Williams would also do some growling. Williams’ bass work is also worth mentioning. You could clearly hear the bass through all the layers of instruments and there’s a lot of slapping going on.
The band also played the entire “Concealing Fate,” a six track suite which forms the centerpiece of their debut album One. Starting with part two the band went through the remaining parts and left part one until the end of the show. They didn’t come back on stage for an encore. Kudos to the band for not bothering with the outdated “we-will-go-off-stage-and-you-will-cheer-for-us-and-then-we-will-return-to-play-more-songs”-routine.
Both bands had crystal clear sound and both shows were great. The crowd seemed happy as well and both bands are welcome back to the Norwegian capital any time!
Setlist: Of Matter – Proxy / Of Matter – Retrospect / Of Matter – Resist / Concealing Fate, Part 2: Deception / Concealing Fate, Part 3: The Impossible / Concealing Fate, Part 4: Perfection / Concealing Fate, Part 5: Epiphany / Concealing Fate, Part 6: Origin / April / Of Energy – Singularity / Of Mind – Nocturne / Concealing Fate, Part 1: Acceptance
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