Antihero Magazine recently had the chance to chat with James Monteith, guitarist for British progressive metal act TesseracT. During the conversation, James talked about the band’s current US tour, the production quality of their onstage performances, the band’s new album Sonder, and how TesseracT allowed the fans to contribute to the album in a major way.

TesseracT released their new studio album Sonder on April 20th via Kscope. Sonder adds significant firepower to the band's arsenal, blending the harsh abrasiveness of One (2011) and progressive ethereal elements of Altered State (2013) with the accessibility of Polaris (2015). Sonder is streamlined, honest, and direct, with all the trademark TesseracT dreamy atmospherics and bending grooves. Sonder was recorded in the UK at 4D Sounds, Celestial Sounds and Project Studios, and engineered by the band and Aiden O'Brien, with mastering by Acle Kahney and cover artwork designed by Amos Williams.

For audiophiles, TesseracT have produced a binaural version which will be available exclusively as part of the 2-CD version. This version is a 360-listening experience designed by Klang: Fabrik for headphones listening.

Bassist Amos Williams explains, "The concept is to push past the restrictions of a stereo headphone mix and create an accurate '3D' space in which positioning outside of the normal Left Right axis can occur. This is something that every artist that uses in ear monitors on stage wishes to recreate; the real and accurate positioning of instruments. We immediately felt that this technology could be applicable to us in the studio. TesseracT loves to bring what it does in the studio to the stage, but this time it's experimenting with bringing a live element to the studio."

Sonder tracklisting:

"Luminary"
"King"
"Orbital"
"Juno"
"Beneath My Skin"
"Mirror Image"
"Smile"
"The Arrow"

"King" video:

"Luminary":

Building on their phenomenal success with worldwide tours in support of Polaris over the last two years, as both headliners and as special guests for the likes of Megadeth, Meshuggah, DevinTownsend Project, and Gojira, TesseracT area gearing up take Sonder to worldwide audiences beginning in North America in April. On this tour, they will be supported by Plini and Astronoid, with the first show in Boston on Apri 19th and the tour culminating at New York's Irving Plaza on May 24th.

Tickets on sale at this location

"North America is where TesseracT first took off and is always the leg of the album cycle that holds the most sentiment to me," said Williams. "There are a lot of good memories made and good friends discovered along those long and bumpy roads. This time we're lucky enough to share the road with two boundary pushing bands: Astronoid, a wall of euphoric noise who have a bright and noisy future ahead of them. And Plini, with his genre-defying effortless virtuosity. It’s going to be a fun tour for us, especially as we've got a bunch of new tunes to add to the set!"

Tour dates:

May
11 - Edmonton, AB - Starlite
12 - Calgary, AB - Marquee         
14 - Salt Lake City, UT - The Complex
15 - Denver, CO - Summit
16 - Lawrence, KS - Granada      
18 - Minneapolis, MN - Skyway
19 - Chicago, IL - Metro
20 - Detroit, MI - Majestic
22 - Toronto, ON - Opera House
23 - Montreal, QC - Club Soda
24 - New York, NY - Irving Plaza

(Photo - Steve Brown)