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There’s been a trend of late in metal, with tour lineups becoming more varied and allowing for fans of different genres and subgenres to get their fill in one night. TesseracT seem to have noticed this and gone all out, by combining their own djenty progressive sound accompanied by the technical wizardry of Germany’s Unprocessed, and the mathcore madness of The Callous Daoboys, who’ve come all the way from Atlanta to open up each night of this madcap tour. Each band brings something to the table, so the only way to see just how this lineup might pan out live was to go and witness it ourselves.
As mentioned, The Callous Daoboys are a truly wild group, who have a penchant for vicious live shows packed with energy. They opened up the show to an already pretty well packed out room with one of their most-listened to songs ‘Star Baby’. The aggressive introduction abruptly cuts into their most melodic live moment, with a maximalist post-punk/pop-rock outro that invites a singalong from the audience. Following it up with another song off their celebrated second album ‘Celebrity Therapist’, they went into ‘Violent Astrology’ before ripping out two stellar UK live debut’s from their latest EP - first up was ‘Pushing The Pink Envelope’, which went down a treat, before lead vocalist Carson Pace told everyone to dance or else he “would fuck [their] moms” and launched into the phenomenal ‘Waco Jesus’.
The American six piece kept things moving between songs, so barely gave themselves a moment to breathe before another second album belter with ‘What Is Delicious? Who Swarms?’, and then gave us all a delightful few moments of madness with two final tracks off of their debut album ‘Die On Mars’. A one-two punch of ‘Blackberry DeLorean’ and the single most chilling message you will ever hear, ‘Fake Dinosaur Bones’. The whole set was riveting, and set the night up in good stead for the crowd.
The unenviable job of following that opening set was given to Unprocessed who certainly made life easier for any reviewers by having a set full of single word song titles, most of which being only a single syllable, a far cry from either of the other two acts on the lineup! Kicking their set off with ‘Hell’, the Teutonic group showcased a flurry of high speed guitarwork that was as much a joy to watch as it was to listen to. They had the audience jumping and dancing along to their melodic electro-djent style of prog metal. Whilst the first half of the set felt a little more technical, the last few songs felt like they really captured the pop and electronic sensibilities of the band.
‘Thrash’ was excellent, and led brilliantly into ‘Deadrose’ before ‘Glass’ gave everyone a
moment to calm down. They encouraged the audience to pull out the phones and lighters for a proper singalong, which looked absolutely amazing in person as the band were visibly lit up even in such a large venue. Finale ‘Haven’ was a perfect blend of their melodic and heavy side, with riffs galore and a ton of dancing going on too. Making for a great bridge between opener and headliner, Unprocessed performed excellently and showed off a whole new style of music in the process too!
Headliners TesseracT had one thing above either support that really elevated their set - their
lights show was phenomenal, and made them look absolutely brilliant onstage! And whilst both other bands had a good number of fans in the audience, TesseracT held sway over almost every single person in attendance which did give their atmosphere a little bit of an edge too!
Playing a substantial volume of tracks off of their phenomenal latest offering ‘War Of Being’, the crowd loved them. James Monteith, the Peter Crouch of metal guitarists (because of his height, not his goal scoring ability), struck an imposing figure whilst his hands flowed up and down the neck of his guitar song after song, and Jay Postones held the group together behind his kit through time signature changes and tempo changes all while dropping a flawless set.
Opening with ‘Natural Disaster’ and ‘Echoes’ from the aforementioned latest album, Dan Tompkins started as he meant to go on, delivering towering vocals for every minute of their lengthy set. Third up was the brilliant ‘Of Mind - Nocturne’ which gave room for Alex Kahney to stretch his fingers and watch numerous crowd members' jaws hit the floor, whilst Amos Williams stalked the stage on his bass. Wrapping up the first few songs, they then pulled out the opening track from their 2015 album ‘Polaris’ and so the seven minute epic ‘Dystopia’ flowed out of the room’s oversized speakers to wash over a joyous audience - this would be the only song played off of ‘Polaris’ however, and the five piece moved into a run of four songs including three from ‘Sonder’, playing through ‘King’, the title track off of ‘War Of Being’, then ‘Smile’ and ‘The Arrow’.
Each one was greeted with cheers and whoops, and the light show gave a sense of progression by subtly changing up for each track, whilst illuminating the stage and band members throughout. The end of the main set arrived all too soon, after ‘Legion’, ‘The Grey’ and ‘Juno’ were given a thorough run through, and before we knew it TesseracT had taken their leave of absence. Not to be discouraged though, the typical chants of ‘One more song!’ were taken up and the group walked out to deliver us an utterly glorious double of ‘Concealing Fate, Part 1: Acceptance’ before finishing with its counterpart ‘Concealing Fate, Part 2: Deception’.
The progressive heavyweights not only curated a brilliant lineup, but also a brilliant setlist that they played through showcasing their enormous collective experience, to what can only be described as a gleeful audience. It seemed like a different place after TesseracT had finally finished, with smiles plastered everywhere that had been largely vacant on the rainy walk over, but after three imperious sets of live music each and every attendee looked to be buoyed up on their way home, many taking one last look back into the venue as if to try and capture just a couple seconds more from such a spectacular night.
Cover Photo: Nic Howells
Words: Jake Longhurst
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