For those that don’t know, TesseracT is a British progressive metal band formed in 2007.

All up they have released four full-length albums, one live album and three EPs. And they are building their audience, city by city, stream by stream, show by show, release by release.

The thing about TesseracT is the labelling.

A band called Meshuggah and Sikth came out many years ago and someone labelled their form of progressive music as djent. Seriously what the hell is djent or math core or math metal.

Who comes up with this rubbish?

Nikki Sixx said on Twitter once that all labels are from record label marketing.

Anyway, TesseracT started off as a metal act, with progressive time changes and feels and vocals with ranged between aggressive and melodic.

Then by the time they got to “Altered State” in 2012, it was like a different band. The music was more textured, subdued and melancholic. The progressive time changes were still there, but so were the clean tone vocals this time around, courtesy of new vocalist Ashe O’Hara, who left and old vocalist, Dan Tompkins came back.

Which brings us to “Polaris”. It was listed as sixth in my 2015 list.

“Survival” was the first track released to streaming services. It got a lot of press on the metal sites.

And if you want an introduction into the album, then “Survival” is the song. It’s got a bendy off-time single note riff with a catchy rock chorus.

Musicians never have “overnight” success. We all know that news stories like these headlines but behind every headline like that, there are artists who have worked tirelessly for a long time and committed to many days apart from their to families so they could exist as a band.

This is what “Survival” is about.

Ten years of hope have passed, you felt alone
And pictured life a little differently

Ten years trying to build a music career and you are still in the same apartment or house from where you started. And your loved ones are there, supporting you and giving you advice and hope.

And people say that life has just begun
When you’re not a part of me I feel dead inside

It’s not your “standard touring life” or “trying to make it in music” song like “Turn The Page” or “Wanted Dead Or Alive” or “Home Sweet Home”.

It’s a bit more intellectual because post Napster, there was no record label whisking you away from your family with millions of dollars. There never was.

But people believed their was.