I think I’m going to recommend an album each day as I begin to upload music to TankieTube. Considering I’ve never made a post on One, I thought it would be best to post this on day one of this posting spree.

One has to be one of my favorite albums. It takes a sort-of ambient tone, which then is interjected with harsh guitars and vocals. The guitars do Djent, and the riffs are pretty satisfying. One thing that was hinted at in One was bass. It’s the most quiet bass in any TesseracT album, and yet it can still be heard, something that was more common at the time (Monument’s Gnosis, for example). However, while most bands decided to lower the volume of the bass, and flatten the tone, TesseracT leaned into it, with a rich and audible bass in all of their future albums.

Dan Tompkins is amazing on this album. His voice can go from a angelic, but sad-sounding cleans to the harsh pitched screams of an inner conflict. I once saw someone come up with a comparison between Dan Tompkins and Ashe O’Hara (Altered State) that really sums it up well. While the way Ashe sings demonstrates that same melancholy emotion followed by understanding, Dan takes that and focuses more on the moments of struggle. For this in action listen to both Ashe and Dan’s versions of Perfection (Dan’s is on this album). He’s very flexible and versatile on this album, and although he’s a bit low in the mix sometimes, it’s not so jarring that it’s felt for the whole album. The only bad thing about this album for Dan as an individual, was that he wrecked his voice. He was never quite able to pull of the same kind of vocal performance until War of Being, meaning that the harsh vocals that felt pretty iconic were used sparingly in both Polaris and Sonder (Ashe didn’t scream, so Altered State has none). This is not a jab at any of these albums, and I feel like the harsh vocals they did use in songs like Messenger (Polaris) and King (Sonder) worked really well.

I don’t seem to be talking about one a lot in this rec, and it’s because it feels like such a unique album. If you’ve heard TesseracT at all, many of the sounds they built upon in future work started with this album. This album stands on its own though, and it’s still probably my second favorite TesseracT album. Concealing Fate (All 6 parts) is amazing, and tracks like Lament, Nascent, and Eden are just as amazing (I’ve just listed most of the album).

So, before I go, let me provide some single songs you might enjoy. The best part about One is that, like Altered State, you can pick anything. Love harsh vocals? Nascent and Sunrise. Beautiful cleans? Deception and Perfection. A bit of everything? Lament or Eden. Like all of these? JUST LISTEN TO THE FULL ALBUM AT THIS POINT! That’s all from me, if you read this I appreciate it, and enjoy the album.

A tip for streaming from TankieTube: The website can actually be connected to through Newpipe’s PeerTube option, so you can play the album in the background like you would on a streaming service!