From Bandcamp, "Tetradōm" is the debut album of the instrumental progressive metal-fusion quartet QUADVIUM, half in California - half in the Netherlands, founded in late 2019 by American bass player Steve Di Giorgio and Dutch bass player Jeroen Paul Thesseling. Over time, together with Dutch master drummer Yuma van Eekelen and American guitar virtuoso/composer Eve - whose contribution and expertise play a huge part of QUADVIUM - the music began to take shape. The line-up is just the right blend to mix the delicate balance of such a heavy aural offering and a full vocabulary of high-level constructed pieces.”

The album has seven songs, and “Moksha” is first. It begins fairly innocuously, with clean guitar melodies but a bit of tension hangs in the air. It transitions into a three-headed monster, with some heavy, Djent accents and animated bass guitar work, and some of the runs are Classically influenced. Others are Jazz influenced, and their technical abilities are evident nearly immediately. “Náströnd” is a bit shorter, but no less dense. The bass notes mirror the guitar at times, and break free and dance around at others. The music is heavy, accented yet playful at times, and the band transitions in and out of these passages with ease.

“Apophis” breathes a little more but the weighted accents are still stuck with an incredible precision. Piano notes also enter the fray, and finding that delicate balance between a concise structure and melody that has life in it is difficult. “Ghardus” is a strange song, in that it takes a few minutes before you have a semblance of order, and it’s loose even when you do. It hangs in the darkness and ducks into the shadows, ever-shifting with the movement of the sun. “Adhyasa” chugs like a diesel engine kicking over at first, and then it’s smooth sailing from there for the most part. Still, technical elements outweigh much of the sparing melody used on the album. The heavy chugs are as cold as frost touching your skin.

“Sarab” is another song that revels in dark tones, and technical edges. At times, you can feel the monster shifting within his skin, trying for a human form to escape, but each time he tries, he is trapped deeper. “Eidolon” closes the album, and it has softer and warmer edges at first, but in comes some leads overtop of the dexterous bass movements. Obviously, the band is talented, and they express that easily with the technical nature of their music. It’s like a tangled web of strands that seemingly doesn’t connect or lead to anything, but if you begin to unravel them, they lead to very specific places. My biggest concern is that this is a niche type album, that probably only seasoned musicians will be able to understand and appreciate.