Over the past decade the genre known as “djent” strayed further from paying tribute to Meshuggah into a more slickly produced vein of pop music that just happens to have distorted guitars.
This was pretty effective when executed by a band like Issues, but as the industry’s marketing machine churns on, we now have bands like Sleep Token who are amassing larger followings but sounding like Sam Smith.
Now enters the new album from Earthside, whose songwriting prowess on Let the Truth Speak (Mascot Label Group/Music Theories Recordings) attempts to swing the pendulum back in a direction of more musical depth.
It only takes a minute into the first song for it to become evident that these guys are top-tier musicians. The drumming is nuanced and technically flawless.
Pritam of the New Delhi-based band Aarlon for the song “Tyranny” finds the band maintaining their quality standards, but also falling in a similar melodic vein as Sleep Token, as the song is more of a grandiose pop power ballad.
AJ Channer from Fire From The Gods makes an appearance on “Pattern of Rebirth”. He is another non-metal singer in a metal band making pop music. However he is also effective at what he does. This is one of the album’s strongest songs.
“Watching the Earth Sink” is a melodic instrumental that builds off a gradual dynamic to something almost more djent in timing. The guitar solos it showcases remind me of Joe Satriani in the way they are phrased.
The album veers in a more diverse direction with Tower Of Power’s Larry Braggs handling the vocals for the ballad “The Lesser Evil”.
Harder guitar slowly works its way in as the saxophone of Sam Gendel brings things to a funkier place. One of the album’s stronger moments is found in the ambiance of “Denial’s Aria” with Vikke handling vocals alongside Duo Scorpio adding harp.
TesseracT singer Daniel Hopkins croons over “Let the Truth Speak”. He projects his voice with impressive power, as the song rides a Tool-centric groove.
Baard Kolstad of Leprous plays drums on the last song, and is the most metal element of the album given his time with Borknagar. His drumming is stellar and dynamically builds the song. This throbbing instrumental is a collection of cool sounds being moved rather than telling much of a story.
This album is well constructed, performed, and produced, with three of these songs really killing, and the overall album being highly entertaining in terms of the mood created by the intricate playing.
Buy the album here:
8 / 10
WIL CIFER