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Tesseract — Tesseract
((Not on label) no#, 1997, CD)

by Paul Hightower, Published 1997-10-01

Tesseract Cover art

Joining the ranks of ever more new American prog bands is Tesseract from the Bay Area. Led by keys man, vocalist, and guitarist Don Tillman, this quintet serves up a debut brimming with a variety of sounds and styles, ranging from soundscapes to jazzy instrumentals to straight ahead symph-prog. Most of the song writing is fairly linear with the emphasis on the playing. Standing out in the mix is the wonderful violin work of accomplished classical musician Karen Bentley, who guested on the last Camel release and brings a strong Kansas element to the collection. Tillman's vocals are nothing to write home about, but fortunately they only appear on two of the CD's seven tracks, and are in both instances followed by strong instrumental workouts. The other weak link on the disc is some mundane drumming which also suffers from being too low in the mix. In fact, I found the overall production timid and found myself wanting to keep turning up the volume! I enjoyed Tesseract most when they rocked out a bit, as on the song "Rice," which allowed the drums to cut through and give the ensemble a more balanced interplay. A very promising debut from a group of talented musicians.

Filed under: New releases, Issue 13, 1997 releases

Related artist(s): Tesseract

 

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