ALBUM REVIEW: earthtone9 - In Resonance Nexus

It can be very hard to predict what the future may bring. In 2022 earthtone9 announced a pause on all activity, with no plans to follow up 2013’s comeback album IV on the horizon, and even last year ArcTanGent festival organiser James Scarlett (who named the festival after the group’s influential arc’tan’gent) stated that he believed the band to be all but over. Fast forward to 2024, however, and suddenly we have a brand new earthtone9 album complete with the return of guitarist Joe Roberts. And boy does In Resonance Nexus scratch that alt-metal itch.

Straight from the off it’s clear that, while maintaining the core essence of their sound, earthtone9 have evolved in the 11 years since their last new material. With Bullet For My Valentine drummer Jason Bowld filling in behind the kit on a session basis, there’s a new energy in the band and a much higher tempo overall, with opening salvo “The Polyphony of Animals” and “Navison Record” incorporating much more of the band’s thrashier and proggier influences, particularly with the latter track displaying a certain level of influence from 2010s progressive metal with its discordant main riff and flashes of synth in the chorus.

The heavier and faster side of earthtone9 doesn’t end there, though, with “Lash of the Tongues” threatening to go full on extreme metal with an abundance of blastbeats and tremolo riffs, the chaotic main riff to the aptly named “The Etiquette of Distortion”, plus a guest appearance by Malli Malpass (who TV fans may recognise as “Metalhead” on the BBC series Ranganation) on “Observe Your Course”, providing a neat back-and-forth with Karl Middleton. Even the songs that hark back to the more standard earthtone9 heaviness like “Oceanic Drift” have that extra “kick” to them, in no small part thanks to Bowld being allowed to completely let loose on the drums in a way that original drummer Simon Hutchby seemed reluctant to.

 

 

But there’s still plenty of the melody, flutters of Eastern music influence, and big alt-metal riffs that have always been a staple of earthtone9’s sound - particularly in the closing duo of soaring "Third Mutuality" and experimental epic "Strength Is My Weakness". Middleton’s vocal performance is on point throughout, especially with his earworm choruses in the more classic sounding middle section of In Resonance Nexus, exemplified by “Under the Snake” and “Black Swan Roulette”, which also provide balance to the more chaotic and heavier parts of songs like “The Etiquette of Distortion” as the song whiplashes between its full-throttle verses and huge chorus.

 

 

 

While some more stubborn fans may not appreciate the newer directions explored on In Resonance Nexus, this is still unmistakably an earthtone9 record and will have more than enough in it to satiate the appetites of long-time fans starved of new material over the past decade, and new fans discovering the band for the first time. Let’s not have to wait another decade for the next effort, eh lads? 

 

In Resonance Nexus is out now via Candlelight Records. Stream the album below and follow earthtone9 on Facebook.