Thursday, 19 May 2011
Not many bands can take a ten year layoff and come back as good, as vital, as stunning as this.
 But for those of you arriving early, its an Ocean of swirling sounds. epic soundscapes, driven by massive, crunching riffs. Organs, violins, and guitars heavier than hell itself, complete with vocals straight out of the school of Screamo. That be The Ocean, yar!
The Ocean are technically precise, impressive yet utterly inaccessible. Ten minute epics about the conspiracy of Catholic church and mind control? I'll have three, please. Three 10 minute songs, in one thirty minute set, and its over. Throw in a quote from 'Fight Club' before the last song, and shout "throw your horns in the air, Birmingham!" to complete a cliche.
The Ocean's songs never, ever seem to end. Epic is one word - Bloated,another. No mattter how good they sound - and they sound astounding - they simply don't connect. Perhaps it's me. Maybe its the fact thats its 48 hours without sleep. Maybe its the fact that the songs lack any definable structure. Maybe its because Prog thrash isn't the most accessible of genres - I mean, Imagine covering the worst excesses of Yes, mixed in with Mastodon, Mars Volta And At The Drive In. You've got the idea. If there's one thing this world doesn't need, its a thrash band ripping off huge quantities of the back ctalogue of the otherwise now obscure God Machine.
Yes, they are impressive. Yes, they are out there. Yes, they do sound like a battle metal version of Hawkwind . And yes, they are much much better live than on record. And yes, they seem to have invented their own genre of Prog Thrash Space Metal. But Yes, they are brilliant at what they do, its just that what they do is a ceaseless wall of pretty, technically impressive noise. Sans Chorus, verse and structure. The Ocean are drowning under their own ambition, but thank god someone is trying something different, even if it doesnt always work. If you loved the records, this knocks the spots off them. But is not for everyone.
Earthtone9, on the other hand, are greeted like returning heroes. And so they should. Not many bands can take a ten year layoff and come back as good as this. After being crushed by the wheels of the music industry ten years ago, they've come back, and not in your usual, standard cash in way. For a start, this is only their third or fourth gig in a decade, and its accompanied by an EP of new material, self financed by the fans. New material is never the sign of a band just cashing the paycheck and clocking off like a shift at the local MacDonalds.This must be the third or fourth time I've seen them, and still they are as good as ever, if not better. So when singer Karl Middleton says to the audience "I'd give you guys a 9. And Us about a 7 out of 10 tonight", it makes me wonder - just how good would they be on 10? Stellar, on basis of this. Underrehearsed - there's a little moment in "PRD Chaos" when things go squiffy and they have only rehearsed three times by their own admission - but they are ferocious and biting and vital.
Sometimes, things just click, perfectly. Tonight, that happens, over and over again. They are on the cusp of greatness, if only the wind changed in the right way. You see, Ten years ago, they were tipped for big things. 'arc'tan'gent' seemed poised to cross over from one of the UK brightest metal hopes, to the biggest. Instead we got Lostprophets and Biffy Clyro, which is no substitute. Earthtone 9 plough their own furrow devoid of such considerations as X Factor. Obstinate, stubborn minded, and singular in vision. Even now, over ten years on, I find 'arc'tan'gent' my metal album of the decade ; it exists in a space unlike any other album. I can count on one hand the number of albums I can listen to and then, ten years later, still find little details I've never noticed before. 'Arc'tan'gent' is one of those albums.
Quite simply, Earthtone9 give the best gig I've ever seen them do. Some bands just seem to get lost in the music - you can see it when they get lost in the zone, and that's where the bass player seems to spend most of tonight. With no new album to promote, its a hour long set that draws heavily on their last studio album with two tracks from the new ep and a smattering of oldies. Its a set of humungeously large riffs, subtlety and savage ferocity.
Gigs like this that are worth going deaf for. Almost.
Earthtone9 may well be an acquired taste for a lot of people. Some might think its a barrage of noise. But its not. Its like honey wrapped in barbed wire - intense but ultimately, rewarding. Get past the exterior, and there's riffs the size of houses in here, played with passion and anger and replete with subtlety. Take "PRD Chaos", for example. Imagine System of A Down playing the angular riffs of the Pixies. There's build and dynamics, a rage often lost in the barrage of full pelt, full on rage. Not here. 'Tat Twam Asi' for example, starts like a moroccan folk song, tribal drums and softness, beyond crystallizing into riffs as hard as diamond.
The new songs are easily the equal of anything the band have ever done before. "Tide Of Ambition" is a behemoth - most bands who reform don't come close to their former selves, this exceeds it. Its a short, spiky, blast of riffs and sounds. "Ghosts" shows the band in slightly slower territory - ok, slower than warp speed - melodic, catchy and losing none of its hard edge.
You could quibble about the setlist, and justifiably too. There's nothing from their farewell "Omega" release - not even the almost-commercial "Amnesia", or the exquistely perfect "Revelation", which shows a lot of their more recent usurpers - *cough* Mastodon *splutter* - where they have been copying things from. "Revelation" is a particularly odd omission, being not just one of their strongest songs but also it means "Omega" is the only release not represented tonight. To omit the epic "Binary 101" is criminal and bordering on the inexcusable. A slow, brooding, epic, its weighty and cylic and absent for no good reason.
But its the older, harder, sludgier songs that see the old school going mental tonight. The closing "Vitriolic" and "I Nagural Eye" are pure full on in your face metal core, and things just seem to go mental in the final home run to curfew.
Earthtone 9 are like Marmite - either you love them, or you hate them. If you hate them, I pity you. After ten years in exile, they've resurfaced as even better than before, as one of Britains finest ever bands. Challenging, pushing the envelope with intelligence, not taking the easy option, and incredibly underrated - Thank god (or Satan, depending on your point of view) that they are back. Let's just hope they are back for good.
Setlist:
Intro/Off Kilter Enhancement/Star Damage/Withered/Ghosts/ Tat Twam Asi /Approx Purified/PRD Chaos/Evil Crawling I/Tide OfAmbition/Vitriolic/I Nagural Eye
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