Review Summary: Sonder is natural step for the band following 2015’s Polaris. Perhaps more of a half-step though, considering its length.
Tesseract is back and the fanbase has been curious what direction they would take after
Polaris dropped three years ago. The short answer to that is
Sonder would be most similar to its former album. The tones on a whole have been downplayed compared to their earlier work. So at this point you have a pre-and-post
Polaris sort of divide. But let’s not get wrapped up in pigeonholing this into a certain hole (...) and let's try to judge this on its own merits before comparing it to previous endeavors.
Daniel Tompkins returns as the vocalist and we get a decent performance out of him. He does well to accent the tones of the songs as this album likes to shift between soft and aggressive hues, often multiple times within the same song. During the more heavy sections Tompkins even adds some screaming vocals, which hasn’t been present on a Tesseract album since their debut,
One. The screams are more of the metal-core variety than the death-growl type. Meanwhile, the clean vocals are every bit as good as they have been, if not improved.
As already mentioned, the music on
Sonder likes to shift between harsh and soft tones. Nowhere is that more evident than on the split track, “Beneath My Skin / Mirror Image”. I would also say that “Beneath My Skin” is the stronger of the two. Most of the instrumentation here gives an almost ethereal atmosphere. The track slowly builds more energy once Tompkins flamboyantly sings,
“Take another piece of me
And it just might be enough to drag me under”.
But this just preludes the band hitting the verse again, this time with more punch. The second half, "Mirror Image" reflects the slow ethereal atmosphere from the the first half, and it builds tension slowly as well. The split-track as a whole is a mostly build up however, so it may require multiple listens to fully appreciate the stirring it seeks to accomplish.
Sonder does not take long to digest, clocking in just over 36 minutes. Overall, it falls somewhere between a long-play and an extended-play. Two separate tracks on here serve to complement two others, those tracks being "Orbital" preluding into "Juno" and "The Arrow" serving to close out "Smile" (and subsequently the album as a whole). So in a way,
Sonder has five tracks, but it feels more like six thanks to the split track. With essentially six tracks, and three of them being released as singles, half of the album had already been unveiled before it dropped. Tesseract’s decision to forgo merging the aforementioned four tracks into two splits is greatly appreciated and only serves to make the album more accessible (similar to what they did with
Altered State). Though it makes you wonder what went behind the decision-making process of combining “Beneath My Skin / Mirror Image”.
As for the rest of the album, "Luminary" serves as a weak cookie-cutter opener, but “King” makes up for that and serves as one of the strong highlights on
Sonder. "King" opens ominously and about as cryptic as Tesseract will ever get. It follows with blend of interrupted riffage and melodic chimes that blends nicely. The screaming on here complements the clean vocals around it just as well. Toward the halfway mark the track sombers into an outtro that bursts into itself, similar to that on "Beneath My Skin". Or if you want to go back further, harkens back to memorable intro of "Survival" (
Will I disappear, With a vision of tomorrow), off of
Polaris. Another highlight would have to be "Smile" and "The Arrow". The former flows seamlessly into the latter, so well that it may have make more sense for Tesseract to simply combine the two into a split-track for the album release, despite the accessibility of separating the two.
All in all,
Sonder is natural step for the band following 2015’s
Polaris. Perhaps more of a half-step though, considering its length. Because of that, the album is almost a disappointment and leaves fans wanting more. In another way,
Sonder is also a half-step cause Tesseract plays it safe. Considering how similar this feels to
Polaris, maybe it’s a blessing in disguise and the brevity only serves to make
Sonder feel less recycled. That said,
Polaris had more highlights and serves as the stronger of the two, but this doesn’t fall far behind.
