By Jase Walker
These festivals feel like they pass by so quickly but I’ve still got the full day ahead of me filled to the brim with bands I’m super excited for and topped off by TesseracT. But first I need to get myself a couple of beers and get ready for the start of the day’s bands and for today this kicks off with Benthos!
I interviewed these a short while ago after being totally smitten with their latest album, From Nothing and I am pretty damn excited to see some of this material live! The drums are booming a bit to start but this gets smoothed out pretty sharpish, it’s time for some big riffs that take leads from the likes of The Contortionist, TesseracT, Textures, Periphery, all that good top tier djenty prog metal. Seeing them smash this stuff out live after absolutely rinsing their new album this year is a real treat for me, especially considering how few live dates have followed for 2025.
Benthos are a fantastic example of a band that stands on the shoulders of those who came before then and pushes the genre that bit further in their own way. There’s clear influences but all wrapped up in their own interesting chaotic package that is truly immense to watch live. The title track of the latest album, ‘From Nothing’ puts their Contortionist influence front and centre though with some properly jazzy stuff, busy drums and odd chord progressions and guitars with a ton of reverb and chorus. Excellent start to the day!
Next up is Ron Minis, bringing a bit of a change of pace to the day opting to do some tasteful piano stuff over big riffy prog and metal. Seemingly there’s some technical gremlins about that are delaying the start of the show as they’re running quite late. Evidently it’s not totally just going to be piano driven stuff as some of the brief late sound checking shows a bit of heavy riffing also… actually wait, that’s the start of the show apparently!
Anyway back to the piano driven bits that remind me strongly of Tigran Hamasayan so that’s pretty damn pleasing to me! It’s always quite interesting seeing these sorts of acts play because it’s often easy to write off a piano driven act as unable to drive heavy segments and Ron Minis shows that absolutely is not the case.
Most people have been remarking on how the outright silly heavy bands are a palette cleanser over this weekend but for me, Ron Minis is just that. Busy drums, skillful double bass finger work and keys that dance around constantly, all showing insane levels of rhythmic brilliance.
Esoterica is next on my list of bands to catch at Euroblast on the main stage again and they’re off to a blisteringly massive start. Mixing big atmospheric moments with drops into heavy riffing, leaning a bit more heavily towards bands such as Ions, IHLO, Ne Obliviscaris.
Opting to not use the backing screens as per other bands this weekend and focusing more on solid lighting to compliment their huge sound. The band moves around a ton on stage and there’s barely anyone in the crowd around me that isn’t throwing their heads around for every song. Actually a brief correction here, as it seems they are in fact using the screens but not quite as much as others, whoops). I’m pretty solidly absorbed in this show though, there’s fantastic variance in each song that uses quiet moments to build tension and eventually builds into a huge peak.
I love the symphonic elements to their sound too, this alongside the more proggy elements and grooves fully engrosses me and I think they’ll be another solid addition to my regular listening.
Not wasting a good moment to take advantage of a good crowd, their singer leaps straight into the middle of the fray at one point to really get stuck into it, I think a lot of bands often miss out on the chance to really push themselves a bunch with driving the live show a bit but Esoterica aren’t going to let that happen.
And finishing off Euroblast 2025 for me is the mighty TesseracT! Dan stands alone as the intro plays, a distorted “show your hands” as they kick straight into ‘Concealing Fate’ to kick things off, what a start! Crushing grooves, epic wailing leads, TesseracT are absolutely laying waste to the main stage of Euroblast and we’re barely a few minutes in. Crowd surfers are already constantly coming over the top, waving arms everywhere trying to keep time with their bizarre rhythmic flow, this is a prog headliner in its best form.
It seems that Tesseract are now also running fulltime with the backing vocalists as well to add incredible layering and texture to the vocal lines and just pads out an already fantastic live sound. The epicness of ‘Natural Disaster’ genuinely makes me wonder about seeing them headlining a venue like London’s Alexandra Palace , they’ve got such an incredible production as of late that seeing them on a stage like that would genuinely be the biggest experience for me.
TesseracT conduct themselves as a band that clearly has ambitions for the biggest shows and I feel spoiled being able to still experience them in rooms like this because I don’t feel like it’ll be for much longer. I think I’m going to blow my voice out trying to keep up with the vocals for ‘Nocturne’, easily my favourite song of theirs by a mile. ‘Smile’ and ‘The Arrow’ peppers the set with a bit of their ‘Sonder’ album which clearly goes down well with its more aggressive feel compared to the other more atmospheric numbers.
The crowd surfers intensifies as the set moves on, Euroblast is clearly focusing on ramping up their mania for the final act of this weekend. And I finally get my bloody wish for ‘Concealing Fate Part 2’ and Dan is more than happy to let the crowd scream the verses because everyone here knows every word obviously, it’s Euroblast! And next up is the most TesseracT song that’s ever been written, ‘Juno’, this song represents the single most condensed form for this band for me, rhythmic brilliant on the verses and massive epic atmospheric chorus, brilliant. And finishing off with the brutally aggressive ‘War Of Being’ to wrap up Euroblast 2025.
It’s no secret to anyone I absolutely adore Tesseract and they’re my most seen band by a pretty wide margin as I think this marks the 15th time for me. Every time is like the first time I’ve seen them again and I wouldn’t have it any other way and these guys are absolutely going to step up their game massively over the coming years. TesseracT, legitimately the best British prog metal band around right now.
Thank you Euroblast, you have been spectacular to me for my first experience and you’ve won another die hard fan that’ll be coming back every year no matter how far away I end up.
- Photos courtesy of Esoterica/Euroblast/JacQue Photography/TesseracT.
