It’s hard to fathom nowadays that, when they released their debut album 13 years ago, Tesseract were very much an outsider’s option in the UK metal scene. Metalcore upstarts like Bring Me The Horizon and While She Sleeps were the darlings of the day, while this Milton Keynes quintet were channelling Meshuggah and Pink Floyd, not to mention barely removed from their bedroom-studio origins. Compare that standing to tonight: a headliner at London’s prestigious O2 Forum Kentish Town, which sold out so far in advance that the band could likely have upgraded to somewhere even larger if they wanted to.
Tesseract have amassed a varied progressive metal bill to kickstart their biggest-ever concert in the capital. On paper, THE CALLOUS DAOBOYS could not be further removed from tonight’s headliner, their “prog” credentials earned by their genre-smashing jams of mathcore, baroque pop and nu metal. A venue this cavernous means the drops between styles lose some of their impact, but the band overcome through sheer charisma. In the space of half an hour, London moshes, waves and even sings along to a Sweet Caroline sample.
