EARTHSIDE return with their majestic new song, “We Who Lament,” ft. Keturah which is available now via Music Theories Recordings / Mascot Label Group. You can watch the visualizer here. They will also be joining Danish-Swedish quartet VOLA on their upcoming nine-date US and Canadian tour between 12 – 22 November. You can get tickets from HERE.

At just under 9-minutes long, the New England Cinematic rock collective has birthed another composition of torturous beauty. From a sweeping grandeur to a raging intensity, the song travels relentlessly along, and guest vocalist Keturah breathlessly entwines herself at the centre. Her stunning delivery from the opening salvo, “to be free or fearful? To believe in a past controlled, deciding what remembers,” sets the tone for the song, capturing innocence and fury, vulnerability and ruthless tenacity all at the same time on an incredible journey.

Stream HERE

Musically and lyrically, the song is an awakening and a realization for the band. “We’re still the idealistic and emotionally candid individuals from A Dream In Static, but no longer being able to see the world and humankind through a more hopeful lens—no longer being able to overlook the cracks and broken promises in the narratives we’ve been fed from an early age.”

Keturah was crucial for the kind of song and impression the band wanted to create. “We immediately fell in love with the inimitable character of Keturah’s voice upon a progressive music fan messaging Jamie recommending her. We composed the “We Who Lament” vocal part for a very specific mode of expression, and we turned over innumerable stones before being gifted a link to her live show and having a visceral emotional reaction that she was the vocalist we’d been holding out for on this song if we could somehow connect with her.”

“We adore the performance and heart Keturah put into this song and cannot wait for you to hear her breathe fire over this track. ‘Here We Lie—Our Souls in Cinders.'”

Where their debut was an introspective record, “We Who Lament” continues in the vein of “All We Knew And Ever Loved” in looking beyond their individual selves in confronting a tragic state of humanity and the planet which we inhabit. “Growing up in a world where cold practicality and stubborn resistance to change rule the day. At every turn, it can feel that people like us, with emotional and idealistic wiring, are treated with disdain and pushed to accept things the way they are. Comply, be complacent—”be realistic,” they say. “We’re taught to live our lives with certain core values and that doing the right thing will be rewarded, only to see the most exploitative and coercive figures become the titans of modern society.”
 
“These attitudes and this status quo have gotten us to this point and kicked the can far enough. In the face of this inertia and the dire problems before us, we need to resist hardening ourselves and use our hearts and minds to expand our connections and bring about the change we yearn for, no matter how much time it takes or how much resistance we face. In a sense, it’s a call to arms—albeit in the most peaceful but urgent of senses.”
 
Following the release of the stunning video for “All We Knew And Ever Loved” last summer, this is the second song from their forthcoming album. “We Who Lament” was mastered by Ted Jensen (Mastodon, Gojira, Bring Me The Horizon) and mixed by Forrester Savell (Karnivool, Animals As Leaders). This was the first song the band started writing for the new record, having been partially written alongside the A Dream In Static songs and then finished with the new album material and serves as a natural bridge between the band’s two eras.

Earthside is
Jamie Van Dyck
Ben Shanbrom
Frank Sacramone
Ryan Griffin

EARTHSIDE have released a drum duel of ‘All We Ever Knew And Loved’ Feat. Baard Kolstad, in celebration of National Drummer Day, via Music Theories Recordings / Mascot Label Group.

Recording and Accompanying Dual Drum Duel Video Exhibits Ben Shanbrom and Leprous’ Baard Kolstad Weaving In and Out of One Another’s Performances – watch Here:

To View Animation Video For “All We Knew And Ever Loved” Click Here: https://youtu.be/KVh_Y4o3C0Y

“All We Knew And Ever Loved” is quite unlike anything currently in the rock music landscape.  The song, which marks the return of the band after a six-year hiatus, utilizes one of the largest pipe organs in the world, a full orchestral brass section, thunderous pit percussion, and two dueling drummers to supernatural effect.  The featured artist on the song is Baard Kolstad of the Norwegian Progressive metal act Leprous, whom Earthside have previously toured with. Baard Kolstad was the perfect collaborator to help capture and escalate the frenetic effect. Kolstad’s hectic grooves and barbaric tom battery mingle and trade blows with Shanbrom’s drum set acrobatics in a way wholly different from the two-drummer features of their predecessors.  Opening with the haunting cry of screeching lead guitar, timpani, and pipe organ, the ominous introduction sets the stage for a horrifying climax that never seems to lessen in effect with repeated listens. This dueling drum performance of Shanbrom and Kolstad evokes the omnipresent feeling of a human spiral of conflict.

Earthside’s Ben Shanbrom shares, “’Drum battles’ generally aren’t something I find interesting because the execution of the concept in most songs and performances rarely rises to the creative potential of the idea. The drum duel in ‘All We Knew And Ever Loved’ is something else entirely! It’s a dual drummer composition where the two parts bludgeon, strike, and throw themselves at each other, weaving in and out of the other’s openings. It’s wild to hear my playing alongside Baard’s, not only because I respect him greatly, but also because I feel an almost psychic connection to his playing—there have been so many instances when I’ve listened to a song he’s performed on and thought, ‘ahhh, I would have done the exact same thing here!’ While I definitely feel we have some similar ways in which we go about playing with the pulse and rhythmic orientation of music, we also have some very clear idiosyncrasies unique to each of our styles; we used the distinct ‘part assignments’ in the drum arrangement of the ‘All We Knew And Ever Loved’ to heighten this contrast, while still maintaining a clear flow, and portraying the musical narrative of two opposing forces colliding.”

Leprous’ Baard Kolstad offers, “Earthside is definitely a band thinking forward, and trying to break some of the barriers, so I really hope this track will somehow push the whole genre a little bit for what you can do.  It was a f**** pleasure to join this whole song and this band, and I’m very grateful that when I forced the guys to pick me as a guest musician that they obeyed.  After recording this with Earthside, I’ve been more and more into arrangement of two drummers in metal and music in general. It’s a completely awesome track—I think it all turned out very epic.  When you can have the two different drum kits panned in each of our ears, and you get very much the feeling of being inside the whole band somehow.

The cinematic and groundbreaking animation video, was directed by Maxime Tiberghien & Sylvain Favre, renowned for their prior work with Gojira (‘Another World’). Earthside keyboardist Frank Sacramone, who composed the music, shares, “Humans are the only beings that knowingly destroy themselves.  Animals don’t have a developed consciousness like we do, or a sense of right or wrong, but ‘all we knew and ever loved’ will be gone as we keep perpetuating the same poor decision-making as a species—the same societal structures, economic norms, same use of power. Day by day, we’re beginning to see very real consequences to these willful abuses on a scale we don’t fully comprehend.”

Through the positively apocalyptic sounds of one of the largest pipe organs in the world (recorded at the First Congregational Church in Los Angeles), and an earth-shaking mix courtesy of Randy Staub, known for mixing Metallica’s legendary symphonic live album, S&M, the effect isn’t merely devastating; it’s inescapable. Shanbrom reveals, “A piece of art that resonated strongly with us during the writing and recording of both “All We Knew …” and the new album, was a painting called Duelo a Garrotazos or Fight with Cudgels by the Spanish artist Francisco Goya.  From the time I was exposed to Goya’s Black Paintings—a series of extremely dark meditations on human nature—I’ve been obsessed with them, and the uncanny message of Duelo felt immediately timely and haunting in its relevance to the current day.   This vindictive pettiness that we see all around us in our politics, our arguments, and daily interactions is something universal and terrifying in human nature, and as Frank was composing this song, I was wondering if there was a way we could represent that complex and poignant scene in the actual music. Through a very special collaboration, I think we did it.”  The scene which Shanbrom references depicts two men swinging at each other with full abandon as a far more threatening force—the surrounding quicksand—slowly consumes their lower bodies.

Stay tuned for additional release dates and information on Earthside. The band is Jamie Van Dyck, Ben Shanbrom, Frank Sacramone and Ryan Griffin.

When an artist resurfaces after years spent in creative immersion, whatever they return with needs to make a statement. This is even more the case when said artist is following up a debut as heavily acclaimed as 2015’s A Dream In Static—a work widely regarded as one of the finest, most attention-seizing debut albums in recent rock and metal music.

Cinematic rock collective EARTHSIDE finds themselves squarely in this unenviable position—however, if one song alone could make that critical impression—speaking to the moment, and leaving that heavy feeling of awe churning in the listener’s chest, “All We Knew And Ever Loved” would be that song.

Watch the epic video for All We Knew And Ever Loved here:

In conjunction with their signing to Music Theories Recordings/Mascot Label Group, Earthside returns to the spotlight in the most monumental of fashions. The culmination of years of feverish planning, recording, and detail obsessing, “All We Knew And Ever Loved” offers the first window into the gripping next chapter of the band’s collective story—and the grim scene that awaits humanity in the absence of change.

Sacramone began writing the song in 2017 to the setting of bleak, rainy March weather and the second season of True Detective. “The goal was to be as brute force as possible—to use the most powerful combination of instruments to create a very ambitious aural rendition of humanity fighting itself and sinking,” Sacramone says. “And also as an artist—to put your money where your mouth is; if you want to write something that is about a topic this significant, the music has to live up to it and it needs to be as dramatic as possible; it needs to be devastating.”

Through the positively apocalyptic sounds of one of the largest pipe organs in the world (recorded at the First Congregational Church in Los Angeles) and an earth-shaking mix courtesy of Randy Staub, known for mixing Metallica’s legendary symphonic live album, S&M, the effect isn’t merely devastating; it’s inescapable.

Earthside have also announced that the featured artist on the song is Baard Kolstad of the Norwegian Progressive metal act, Leprous, whom Earthside have previously toured with.

When an artist resurfaces after years spent in creative immersion, whatever they return with needs to make a statement. This is even more the case when said artist is following up a debut as heavily acclaimed as 2015’s A Dream In Static—a work widely regarded as one of the finest, most attention-seizing debut albums in recent rock and metal music.

Cinematic rock collective EARTHSIDE find themselves squarely in this unenviable position—however, if one song alone could make that critical impression—speaking to the moment, and leaving that heavy feeling of awe churning in the listener’s chest, “All We Knew And Ever Loved” would be that song, out August 19th.

In conjunction with their signing to Music Theories Recordings/Mascot Label Group, Earthside returns to the spotlight in the most monumental of fashions. The culmination of years of feverish planning, recording, and detail obsessing, “All We Knew And Ever Loved” offers the first window into the gripping next chapter of the band’s collective story—and the grim scene that awaits humanity in the absence of change.

Sacramone began writing the song in 2017 to the setting of bleak, rainy March weather and the second season of True Detective. “The goal was to be as brute force as possible—to use the most powerful combination of instruments to create a very ambitious aural rendition of humanity fighting itself and sinking,” Sacramone says. “And also as an artist—to put your money where your mouth is; if you want to write something that is about a topic this significant, the music has to live up to it and it needs to be as dramatic as possible; it needs to be devastating.”

Through the positively apocalyptic sounds of one of the largest pipe organs in the world (recorded at the First Congregational Church in Los Angeles) and an earth-shaking mix courtesy of Randy Staub, known for mixing Metallica’s legendary symphonic live album, S&M, the effect isn’t merely devastating; it’s inescapable.

Earthside have also announced that the featured artist on the song is Baard Kolstad of the Norwegian Progressive metal act, Leprous, whom Earthside have previously toured with.

Pre-save ‘All We Knew And Ever Loved’ HERE