Recently, AMR had the opportunity to review Scale the Summit’s latest album Carving Desert Canyons, which I thought was a very well put together all instrumental album. Upon finishing this album, I really wasn’t sure that Scale the Summit would find much success outside of their niche fanbase or the progressive metal community because of the complete anti-thesis they work with in comparison to modern, popular metal. However, along came the promo album for Tetrafusion’s debut album Absolute Zero. After listening to this, there is no doubt that instrumental metal has the ability to make a HUGE impact on the metal community!

Absolute Zero, first and foremost, is a concept album. How you ask, can an all instrumental album be conceptual? To which I would answer, “have you ever listened to ‘The Planets’ from Gustav Holst?” Conceptualizing music is not a new phenomenon, and Tetrafusion’s Absolute Zero is merely a tried and true method of expressing musical art. Most metal fans however, are still hung up the traditional rock and roll methodology of lead man and the accompanying band. However, once people sample this puppy, there is no doubt that opinion will change. Now, before I sidetracked myself, I was about to explain the details of the album’s concept. Absolute Zero “depicts the life of the universe from beginning to end via the form of instrumental music,” which is direct from the booklet. This may sound straight forward enough, but the band is quite literal in its translation of concept to music with a very intricate, scientific timeline with each song representing a point along the way. Appropriately, each step on this intricate path of cosmic creation is represented by an out of this world progressive track. Ladies and gentlemen, Tetrafusion pulls no punches on this album, this is quite simply put, conceptually, instrumentally, metallic…y?, amazing.

From beginning to end, I was not once lost, nor did I succumb to boredom. Tetrafusion weaves an incredible symphony of riffs alongside perfectly projected drums and keys. I do have to admit, that as great as this album is, I wasn’t really able to follow the “story” per se. I am no idiot or anything, but the scientific concepts were a bit lofty (especially those that represent the physics of the universe) when trying to identify them with the music at hand. No matter though, because understanding the point of the music as the musicians intended is not as important, because the enjoyment factor of simply listening to each track is enough for me.

Going back to my Scale the Summit comparison. While Scale the Summit uses more of a subdued take on their metal with a more mesmerizing and trance like feel to their music, Tetrafusion is much more curious and outgoing. Its kind of funny to think that metal can be differentiated at that level, but if you have heard both of these bands, you may know what I am getting at. Oh, and did I mention that this album is completely self released? The bad ass-itude has increased 10 fold with this fact in mind.

The bottom line though, ignoring all the hubub about concepts, sub-genre classification, and popularity contests, is that Absolute Zero is an album that bridges all boundaries because its literally impossible to not like at least SOMETHING about this album, in fact, I challenge people out there to sample this record on the band’s Myspace page and come back here and tell me that it sucks. If you do, you won’t get any free energy drinks…simple as that, because everyone else will….free ones.

AMAZING

Top Tracks: The one about the forming of the Universe….oh wait

Similar Artists: Scale the Summit, Johansson, Derek Sherinian, Dream Theater, Joe Satriani

1.    The Beginning    10:16
2.    Dark Matter    08:28
3.    Energy    03:34
4.    Gravity    04:30
5.    Inertia    06:16
6.    Momentum    05:45
7.    Time Lapse    02:59
8.    The End    15:00

Gary – Keyboards
Brooks – Guitar
Mark – Bass
J.C. – Drums/Percussion

Self Released

http://www.tetrafusion.net/

http://www.myspace.com/tetrafusion

Review by CODY