''Polaris'' is the third studio album by British

progressive metal Progressive metal (sometimes shortened to prog metal) is a broad :Fusion music genres, fusion music genre melding heavy metal music, heavy metal and progressive rock, combining the loud "aggression" and amplified electric guitar, guitar-driven s ...

band

Tesseract In geometry, a tesseract is the four-dimensional analogue of the cube; the tesseract is to the cube as the cube is to the square. Just as the surface of the cube consists of six square faces, the hypersurface of the tesseract consists of eig ...

. It was released on 18 September 2015, both digitally and physically on vinyl and CD. There is also a 2-disc version with the album mixed in 5.1 surround sound.

Background

Tesseract parted ways with vocalist Ashe O'Hara in June 2014 and invited original vocalist Daniel Tompkins back into the band. Tompkins, who had been dedicated full-time to the band

Skyharbor Skyharbor is an Indian/American progressive metal band with members from New Delhi and Mumbai, India; and Cleveland, Ohio, US. History The band was initially guitarist Keshav Dhar's studio project, before TesseracT vocalist Daniel Tompkins co ...

, agreed to return, and writing for a third Tesseract album commenced. The first single from the album, "Messenger", was released on 3 August 2015 on

Kscope Kscope is an independent record label that is part of Snapper Music, and a sister-label of Peaceville. It is dedicated to artists in the progressive rock genre. The label has released albums by Steven Wilson and his projects Porcupine Tree (m ...

YouTube YouTube is a global online video platform, online video sharing and social media, social media platform headquartered in San Bruno, California. It was launched on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim. It is owned by ...

and

SoundCloud SoundCloud is an online audio distribution platform and music sharing website that enables its users to upload, promote, and share audio. Founded in 2007 by Alexander Ljung and Eric Wahlforss, SoundCloud is one of the largest music streaming se ...

pages. The second single from the album, "Survival" was then released on 3 September 2015 along with the video for the same. The video was filmed and directed by Pele Newell with the Derbyshire landscape as the backdrop.

Critical reception

''Polaris'' received generally positive reviews. Review aggregate

Metacritic Metacritic is a website that review aggregator, aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted arithmetic mean, weighted average). M ...

gave the album a 74 out of 100 based on 6 professional critics. Tom Jurek of

Allmusic AllMusic (previously known as All Music Guide and AMG) is an American online music database. It catalogs more than three million album entries and 30 million tracks, as well as information on musicians and bands. Initiated in 1991, the databas ...

gave the album a positive review saying "Polaris is the record that Tesseract have been working toward. The evolved maturity of their writing, playing, and arranging is matched by the experience and confidence Tomkins gained while away. Reunited, they deliver not only creativity and sophistication but inspiration." Thompson D. Gerhart of

Sputnikmusic Sputnikmusic is an American music community website offering music criticism and music news alongside features commonly associated with wiki-style websites. The format of the website is unusual in that it includes both professional and amateur c ...

gave the album a mixed review. The most positive feedback came from the AU Review's Dave Roberts, who called it "one of the most amazing albums" of 2015 and compared the album to masterpieces by other artists, for instance

Dream Theater Dream Theater is an American progressive metal band formed in 1985 under the name Majesty by John Petrucci, John Myung and Mike Portnoy while they attended Berklee College of Music in Boston, Massachusetts. They subsequently dropped out of the ...

Octavarium ''Octavarium'' is the eighth studio album by American progressive metal band Dream Theater. Released on June 7, 2005, it was the band's final release with Atlantic Records. Recorded between September 2004 and February 2005, it was the last albu ...

and

Stanley Kubrick Stanley Kubrick (; July 26, 1928 – March 7, 1999) was an American film director, producer, screenwriter, and photographer. Widely considered one of the greatest filmmakers of all time, his films, almost all of which are adaptations of nove ...

's 2001: A Space Odyssey, and sums up his review as follows: "In short, if you are a fan of djent music, buy this album. If you like metal, do the same. If you like music, do it. You know what, just get it."

Track listing

Personnel

;Tesseract * Acle Kahney –

guitars The guitar is a fretted musical instrument that typically has six strings. It is usually held flat against the player's body and played by strumming or plucking the strings with the dominant hand, while simultaneously pressing selected stri ...

- drum programming * James Monteith – guitars * Jay Postones –

drums A drum kit (also called a drum set, trap set, or simply drums) is a collection of drums, cymbals, and other Percussion instrument, auxiliary percussion instruments set up to be played by one person. The player (drummer) typically holds a pair o ...

* Daniel Tompkins –

vocals Singing is the act of creating musical sounds with the voice. A person who sings is called a singer, artist or vocalist (in jazz and/or popular music). Singers perform music (arias, recitatives, songs, etc.) that can be sung with or without ...

* Amos Williams – bass ;Guest musicians *

Martin Grech Martin Grech (born 14 November 1982) is an English singer, songwriter and musician from Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire. Career Grech released his debut album ''Open Heart Zoo'', produced by Andy Ross, in June 2002. He achieved critical acclaim f ...

- additional vocals (track 2) ;Additional credits * Acle Kahney – producing, mixing, mastering * Additional composition by Aidan O'Brien * Bruce Soord (

The Pineapple Thief The Pineapple Thief are a British progressive rock band, started by Bruce Soord in 1999 in Somerset, England. History Early years Founder Bruce Soord started The Pineapple Thief as an outlet for his music back in 1999. Soord released the ...

) - 5.1 mix * Simon C. Page – artwork

Charts

References

2015 albums Kscope albums Tesseract (band) albums {{2010s-electronic-album-stub