Earthside - "Let the Truth Speak"
Cinema for your ears
Earthside is a young Prog Metal/Rock band who define themselves as “Cinematic Rock”. Honestly, with the way that their instrumentation tends to wax and wane, swell and swoon, I don’t hate that term. Let the Truth Speak is only their second album, a full eight years after their debut effort, A Dream in Static, which released in 2015.
This album toes the line between Rock and Metal, occasionally dancing along it on either side, but it is always firmly in Progressive territory. It has the tendency to linger in a lighter, piano-led mode, then hop the genric divide with a sudden spike in intensity, such as on the third track, “Tyranny”. On the same track, guest vocalist Pritam Adhikary of Aarlon (a Hindi Metalcore group) includes a verse in his native Hindi.
I should note here that Earthside does not have a dedicated vocalist. Guitarist Jamie van Dyck, drummer Ben Shanbrom, and bassist Ryan Griffin all provide backing vocals as needed, but lead vocals only come from featured artists. This is likely why the album launches with an instrumental track, “But What if We’re Wrong”. This also gives the album a bit of additional flexibility, given each vocalist’s different vocal ranges and stylistic approaches.
Track 4, for example, features AJ Channer of Fire From the Gods (a Texas-based Rap Metal and Metalcore outfit). Channer, when he really gets going, happens to be a remarkable soundalike for Sevendust’s Lajon Witherspoon, making the track sound like the best Sevendust song we’ve gotten in years (and that isn’t meant as a joke, as this year’s Truth Killer was actually really good); Sevendust, but proggier.1
Since we skipped it, I should note that it took a while to track down the guest vocalist for track 2, “We Who Lament”, as the top result for “Keturah” is a Malawian vocalist and instrumentalist. But that’s not her. Rather, “We Who Lament” features Keturah Johnson of The Heavy Medicine Band (thanks, YouTube comment section!).2 Keturah’s vocal timbre and depth are an incredible additive element for this track, and, like all of the other featured vocalists, the band gives the vocal line adequate space while still maintaining their dominance of the track and its evolution.
This is really the band’s core skillset – they’re all composers who have been friends since high school. They’re masters of music theory and they’re lifelong friends. And it shows, Especially when we reach the last track in the first half of the album: “Watching the Earth Sink”. There are no featured artists – it’s just Earthside, and they craft an incredibly intricate, appropriately cinematic instrumental which spans almost twelve minutes of playtime. This feels like a good time to share this review of the album from The Prog Mind.3 The author here seems to know the band, personally, and gives a much more descriptive and familiar overview and breakdown of how they operate on Let the Truth Speak that I can’t resist sharing:
This is a progressive metal album, yes, but it is so much more. It is towering, almost keeping me on my literal tiptoes with its highwire melodies. It is mixed impeccably well, and so you will hear every riff, every orchestration, every groove, and every sweeping motion in crystal clarity. This album is perfectly comfortable in the warm ambience, but just as comfortable with a crushing riff, a soaring piece of cinema, or a textured abstraction. It is a voyage through a deluge of sensations, a sepulcher of light, a dream of inner places.
In short, throughout the album, the band allows the music to lead. Every moment, every movement, is informed and decided by what the song needs. It’s the exact same sort of patience that I’ve noted and praised in reviews of Sleep Token’s Take Me Back to Eden and Iron Maiden’s Senjutsu. And the cohesion within the compositions makes many tracks feel like the auditory equivalent of a smooth bourbon.
Moving forward, the vocals of Larry Braggs (former vocalist for soul band Tower of Power) provided one of the few iffy moments for me on my first listen – they struck me as an attempt to emulate Russell Allen, and through that lens they just didn’t work for the first three minutes of the song. I feel obligated to include that impression because I also need to stress the incredible turn in this song which shortly follows and makes it one of my favorite tracks on the album — even on that first listen. It’s just his style as a soul vocalist being pressed into this new mold. Maybe this says more about Allen’s vocal style than Braggs’.4
The turn in the song occurs when the other featured artist, Sam Gendel, a saxophonist, brings the brass. Suddenly, the song is on fire. Elements of Jazz and Soul, which had been present in the vocal line, become equally as prominent as the prog. Gendel and Braggs hold their own through the last seven minutes of the track, and “The Lesser Evil” becomes the closest thing to Thank You Scientist or Diablo Swing Orchestra that we got in 2023.
Keturah returns in track 7, “Denial’s Aria”, which is simultaneously light and intense and just packed with emotion – sorrow and anguish. She is joined here by Vikke, who provides backing vocals and vocalizations, and Duo Scorpio, who provide harps to the track. Track 8, “Vespers”, is the shortest track on the album, coming in at under three minutes, and its only vocals are vocalizations by Gennady Tkachenko-Papizh and Vikke.
The last two tracks on the album are title track “Let the Truth Speak” and “All We Knew and Ever Loved”, running for 10:47 and 9:19, respectively, making them the third- and fourth-longest tracks on the album. “Let the Truth Speak” features Daniel Tompkins of TesseracT on vocals and additional vocal support from Tkachenko-Papizh; “All We Knew and Ever Loved” features Baard Kolstad, Leprous’ drummer. This, of course, means that the final track is, again, an instrumental. With a second drummer. And it’s just as amazing as the rest of the album.
Earthside are a rare act, and they utilize their unique position in crafting the central theme of Let the Truth Speak. With no dedicated vocalist or lyricist, many of the guest vocalists for the album were responsible for writing their own lyrics. Thus, Let the Truth Speak, as there is no singular capital-T “Truth”; everybody has their own truth, and we can only come close to finding anything resembling an absolute “Truth” when we listen to one-another. There’s an interesting breakdown of the album that the band did with LouderSound which presents the truth of each perspective offered, and it’s a very interesting read.
I picked this one up after learning that they’ll be touring with Caligula’s Horse next year – Caligula’s Horse won my AOTY in 2020, beating out both Nightwish and Taylor Swift – and if Caligula’s Horse wants Earthside opening for them, they must be good, right?
Absolutely right. It’s very hard to find anything to fault on this album. It’s filled with incredible moments and composition. Given the disparity between my first (passive) and my second (active) listens, I want to give this one a little more attention before I finalize its rating. But if you’re a fan of prog (rock or metal), strong instrumentation, or diverse compositions, you need to hear this album.
Rating: Lavender Purple
Ironically, Lajon Witherspoon was actually a featured vocalist on Earthside’s debut album.
You know the world is upside down when you’re thanking the YouTube comment section…
Jason Spencer, the man who is The Prog Mind, is basically me. Except he has a legit website and has properly niche’d himself into a singular genre and, if his writing is anything to go by, has dreamy eyes.
Braggs recorded a message regarding his involvement which you should watch.)