Review Summary: We're too far gone
Northlane are back, stumbling in with an awkward, horrifically produced mish-mash of all their hallmarks since Marcus joined, strung together without any cohesion. It's a tragic follow up to the surprisingly strong
Obsidian, with this bringing back the guitars that LP scaled back, and it unfortunately highlights the extreme limitations to this band's approach to riffwork. The band chugs and chugs away the same minimal handful of patterns across this whole project, greatly homogenizing the EP despite the different objectives of these tracks. Although plenty of ideas from its predecessor do appear, the subtle parametric shifting of synth lines don't benefit the little 4 note lead riffs of this release nearly as smoothly. The production is a dire return to Putney's mixing on
Node, with the guitars and drums both sounding as artificial and devoid of presence as they did on that record. One of the least palatable aspects of the mixing is also how it brings out every single attribute of Bridge's voice, making him sound too upfront and really ugly and unsavory as a result, with the most atrociously mixed performances found on “Afterimage” and “Let Me Disappear”.
The surprisingly strong feature list is the EP's only real saving grace, with Parkway Drive's Winston McCall most notably delivering his best appearance in years on "Miasma", but they hilariously display that all the talent in the world can't save such underwritten material. At worst, they highlight the ineptitude of the band even further, with "Afterimage" showing Karnivool's Ian Kenny getting constantly interrupted by Bridge's significantly worse performance. The electronics are also dismally applied here, which are particularly glaring on "Let Me Disappear" boasting a disastrous breakdown that mirrors the album artwork in the least palatable way possible; where guitars, synths, and wubs all collapse out of a fractured landscape. The artwork is a pretty reasonable representation for the project as a whole, an unrecognizable abomination. This doesn’t really live up to any bar set by any prior Northlane record, and it makes a very strong case as to why taking a break from LPs is a good idea for the band right now.
