What is absolutelly amazing for me in this album is that I needed time. Time to adapt myself to new reality. At first I was like "Mesmer is more like popcore, not metalcore now" Now I believe that it's on of the albums that defines originality and passing the border of a genre so fluidly. I am amazed more and more while listening more to Mesmer. Changing directions - Northlane, you are not doing it good. You are doing it fucking brilliant. Thank you
Yeah but you have to realize that most of those Singularity-esque bands came out a year or two later (Singularity was released 2012 and by 2014-2016 plenty of copycats spawned, only very few captured the essence of it thought, but I agree, Node was decent, but Mesmer is a whole other beast. I love it, and honestly I think even less metalcore/progressive metalcore bands will manage to copycat this correctly, this is too different, but it'll be nice to see them try in a year or two.
It's been awhile where I literally enjoyed EVERY song on an album. The last album where I enjoyed the entire thing was August Burn Red's "Constellations." This album is pure gold!
You enter a different dimension when you listen to Northlane either when listening to the old albums with Adrian or now the new albums with Marcus #mindblowing
The only thing clearly better than Node about this album is the vocals, because it plays more to Marcus' strengths. The instrumentals are worse though. Half of the songs have very similar sounding guitar parts and a lot of the complexity is gone. It's not a bad listen and I'm sure it'll grow on me, but it feels a bit insipid. There's little of the variety and novelty of Node, little of the complexity and energy of Singularity, little of the rawness of Discoveries. Nic and Marcus sound great as ever, but the guitars are not interesting, and as a guitarist that sucks. Even the theme isn't as appealing. I'll take environmental issues, loneliness, and existential shit over "the man is watching us - fight the power!".
On the topic of lyrical content, only 'Citizen' is about fighting the power. Colourwave = Josh's depression 'Savage = Mankind needing to unite to survive 'Solar = Our apparent obsession with colonising Mars and mistreating the Earth Heartmachine = Marcus' relationship falling apart Intuition/Zero-One = Following your heart Fade = The death of Marcus' father Render = How this life is "just a ride" Veridian = The death of Josh's great-grandmother Paragon = A tribute to Tom Searle
Discoveries all sounded the same to me. Dispossession was the best but the rest were meh. Adrian's screams got old after the 4th song. For me it's Mesmer > Node > Singularity but Singularity is still brilliant in it's own right.
Discoveries, Transcending Dimensions, Comatose, Corruption, Exposure, I Shook Hands With Death. If you think those all sound the same you're mad. way more variety than Mesmer.
You can't be serious. I mean i like everything Northlane has ever done, but in mine, and most other people's opinions, Singularity has yet to be topped. It's just a work of art
It's about who does it better or in Northlane's case, who did it better. Singularity is still top. The sound they have pursued in this release is nothing new. This is a very safe release and there is nothing fresh here. That being said there are enjoyable parts to this album, but I don't think I can mention a single song that sounds like something I haven't heard before.
