Absolute Zero

On their debut prog-y concept album, Louisiana-based metal quartet Tetrafusion dare to depict the life of the universe -- sans vocals! Not only are they up to the task, they have created a tour de force.

"The Beginning" commences with a bang -- the Big Bang. A portly bass line emerges from the void as if matter coalescing. Drums slam along side a crunchy guitar like a Harley triggering car alarms. A synthesizer enters the mix and the quartet takes off for the next ten minutes executing challenging time signatures and angular melodies. The chaotic tension and pace build to a climax representing life on Earth.

"Dark Matter" is introduced via a morose duet between piano and cello. Then the full group kicks in with one of the album's more straightforward rock riffs. As with everything on Absolute Zero, its temporary, as a drum and bass breakdown ensues. Guitarist Brooks Tarkington provides a cosmic lead before the band shifts gears into a vortex of obscure chord progressions, including a brief flexing of their funk muscle, which gets sliced and diced by J.C Bryant’s otherworldly drumming.

"The End" of this nearly 50-minute epic comes with classical piano interludes, thunderbolt metal accents, seven-string bass workouts, face-melting guitar slashes, eight-limbed drumming, all framed within an engaging composition depicting the final throes of life. Like the cessation of molecular movement that is the end of the universe, a lone piano reflects on the bittersweet before it, too, ceases.

• Album: Absolute Zero (2009)
• Artist: Tetrafusion
• Label: Unsigned
• Songs: (1) The Beginning (2) Dark Matter (3) Energy (4) Gravity (5) Inertia (6) Momentum (7) Time Lapse (8) The End