Escher’s Knot - Tessellations

July 5, 2010

Reviewer: Jesse

Release Date: April 2010
Label: Roadcrew Records

TRACK LISTING

1.  Hyperspace (instrumental)
2.  Anonymous Origins
3.  Up for Nothing
4.  Mayan Calendar
5.  Break the Cypher
6.  Saidapet Score (outro)

Total Playing Time:  22:51

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*Comments:

Escher’s Knot, the latest to enter the jazzy tech death field by way of Chennai, India, have released their debut EP titled Tessellations. After only being together for about a year, Tessellations is certainly a promising rough draft of things possibly to come from them, but for now, this EP is a mixed bag not of genres or styles, but of good and bad material.  Escher’s Knot knows what they want to play and the proverbial “mixed bag” statement doesn’t mean that they switch from genre to genre with each song.  In fact, they do happen to be one of the few upstart bands that I come across who actually live up to their self-descriptions: Martyr, Meshuggah, Textures, etc.  The problem with this type of metal is that it has the tendency to be very fragmented and gives the band too much room for needless exploration and experimentation.  On Tessellations, I hear the beginnings of fragmentation and they’ll need to nip that in the bud before moving on to a full-length album.

Opening the EP is “Anonymous Origins” which is easily the highlight of the four tracks.  This song is fluidly brutal and technical without losing any direction right to the end.  There’s a break at about the two-minute mark where they switch to a clean guitar sound and bass line only to come back in full fury for the rest of the song.  Even with that hiccup, it didn’t distract from the song’s flow.  “Anonymous Origins” is the type of song Escher’s Knot should formulate their sound around.  “Up for Nothing” is very similar except it’s much heavier and keeps their sound intact nicely.  After hearing both of these songs, I was beginning to be impressed.  The next two songs reminded me that this is still a pretty young band who need a little more time to hone their skills.

“Mayan Calendar” starts off decently enough until about two minutes in where it slightly devolves into a galloping breakdown with some random blast-beats thrown in that just sort of come out of nowhere.  Then with about forty seconds left, the song stops abruptly only to close out with another breakdown segment.  This song has issues.  “Break the Cypher” is essentially one long breakdown section which leaves it so fragmented that I can’t remember a thing about it even after four or five listens.

Escher’s Knot has quite a challenge in front of them as this style is very difficult to succeed and get noticed in.  It takes much more than just talent playing your instruments and good production; it takes a supreme amount of song-writing ability in order to not lose the listener’s focus or patience during an entire album.  And let me just say right now on those first two aspects, Escher’s Knot is a very talented band with their instruments. The drummer and bassist are just off-the-charts exceptional and whoever produced this EP did an absolutely fantastic job, so it would certainly not be for a lack of talent or resources should Escher’s Knot fail in the long run.  One thing I should mention though is that the vocals teeter on the edge of being unlistenable.  That high-pitched scream where the singer more-than-likely has the mic gripped in both hands with his eyes smashed shut really needs to be done away with or lessened in its abundance in their future songs.  It’s seriously one of the more generic vocal styles in metal and is what you hear far too many ‘core bands do.  I don’t mind it if it’s used sparingly along with the deeper growl, but there are times during this EP where the scream just takes over and is really grating to listen to.

Other than that, I don’t think we’ve heard the last from Escher’s Knot and genuinely look forward to more material.  Keep it up.