It goes without saying (because we’ve said it so many times before), but there’s something incalculably special about first-half-of-the-2000s British rock and metal. Back in that magical time when your speedhorns were raging and your reasons were hundredfold, the good stuff was inescapable. To this day, it still feels as though every debut or noteworthy release is heralded as a classic to someone. And while a good chunk of it did have some crossover legs, earthtone9’s arc’tan’gent was a bellwether of the underground whose influence remains firm. You can count on one hand—maybe one finger, if we’re being honest—the number of bands whose album title has been pinched for an entire festival’s name. Said festival this year finds itself headlined by Explosions In The Sky, Meshuggah and Mogwai, as if to do its own bout of heavy lifting to maintain earthtone9’s cult status.
Plus, arc’tan’gent came out in 2000, and the spotty release portfolio since would suggest that the mainstream has nothing to offer earthtone9. Its follow-up was only released in 2013; the follow-up to that is only coming right now. For a band whose self-imposed hibernation could’ve been severely milked but was instead announced with the blunt uneventfulness of a Facebook post, you’d better believe they aren’t just shovelling something out now for the sake of it. On top of that, they’ve linked up with Brit-metal maestro Lewis Johns on production, as if the sense of reinvigoration couldn’t be shoved further down your throat. This is no mere nostalgia trip; this is key, concentrated effort to get right up there on the index of vital heavy wares.
Thus, In Resonance Nexus’s opening twofer of The Polyphony Of Animals and Navison Record feels custom-built to show off the dichotomy of earthtone9 in 2024. The former is a metalcore rager in the shape of top-of-their-game While She Sleeps; the latter, a showcase of their more jagged, progressive edges amid some excellently robust metal. The common denominator is that it all sounds immense, where the precision of modern metalwork does wonders for a band who’ve always teetered between accessibility strata. In Resonance Nexus, then, might contain some of earthtone9’s more explicitly catchy work—the aforementioned The Polyphony Of Animals is one such case, as are Black Swan Roulette’s sideways glances at Deftones, and some honest-to-goodness ear-candy on Lash Of The Tongues.
The thing feels massive and impressive at every turn, and with every creative decision that earthtone9 make. The fallow decades between albums clearly haven’t been spent twiddling their thumbs; you don’t stumble upon something this good by accident. You don’t find this much consummate success within it, either. It’s evidence of how deeply and voraciously earthtone9 have drilled into what their abilities allow for them. The density and heaviness are both a given, but there’s also a keen delicacy from the icy synth twinkles on Third Mutuality, and the navigation of fissure-forming prog-metal over a seven-minute space on Strength Is My Weakness.
All the while, they’re fully in tune with the contemporary impulses of their scene, and how to seamlessly fit within it. Karl Middleton remains a powerhouse singer, perhaps more than ever in a clean register with stratospheric reach. Among the crowd of While She Sleeps, Bury Tomorrow et al, there’s no question that earthtone9 in their current stead would be a perfect match. And with that comes the notion of reach that they’ve never really had in this capacity. Especially with bands like Loathe that have revitalised complex and forward-thinking metal, this really is earthtone9’s conscious bid to be amongst it. They do bridge the gap, but in a one-size-fits-all way that could do wonders within swathes of modern metal. The environment has changed around them and they’ve made a solid effort to keep pace, such is the reason that In Resonance Nexus is so removed from your run-of-the-mill reunion-circuit cash-grab.
It’s barely in the same universe as that, and earthtone9 are absolutely aware of that. If they weren’t, a shoddier, far less impactful version would’ve been pumped out about ten years ago, and promptly been forgotten not long after. At least with In Resonance Nexus, there’s a hope of it sticking around; it deserves to, if nothing else. When you consider the top talent of metal’s more sophisticated palette, that’s a conversation that earthtone9 should be a part of now. Far removed from the early 2000s and arc’tan’gent’s cannonball into progressive music, the ripples it left are picking up again considerably once again. The new wave of earthtone9 could be even more devastating than the first.
For fans of: Loathe, While She Sleeps, Karnivool
‘In Resonance Nexus’ by earthtone9 is released on 21st June on Candlelight Records.
Words by Luke Nuttall
