When Northlane are asked what their dream is, the staunch reply from guitarist Josh Smith is, “We’re already living it.” He isn’t wrong. The Australian band has seen an increased trajectory over the past eight years, steadily growing with time. It is a dream that some bands could only hope to achieve, and one has lead to their career-defining album, ‘Mesmer’. As Smith says, it is an “aural-cinematic experience.”
Arriving two years after previous album, ‘Node’, which saw the band expand on further on their progressive metal sound, ‘Mesmer’ finds the band shifting into yet another gear. “We never release the same record twice, and once again moved forward and evolved our sound,” says Smith of the direction on the album. “It’s heavier, and I think it’s more digestible than anything we’ve done before. We’ve never spent this much time refining vocals before either, and I think the emotion conveyed through Marcus [Bridge, vocals] is really the highlight of the record.”
For Bridge, this is now his second record with Northlane, and the range, diction, and passion of his delivery shows he is now truly at home fronting the band. “David [Bendeth, producer] pushed him beyond his breaking point to build him back up again,” says Smith on the matter of making a feature of Bridge’s vocal performance. “Marcus wrote lyrics on this record about his personal experiences too and truly came out of his shell. He’s more confident than ever in his ability and you can hear it in the songs.”
Smith hammers home the point about the heavier edge of the record while retaining an inviting quality, stating it was all part of the initial vision for ‘Mesmer’. “We wanted to experiment in some new ways, especially with electronic soundscapes,” he says. “We were conscientiously writing it for quite a long time, even did a writing camp for a week in Germany, and then went into the studio more prepared than ever before.”
The vision for ‘Mesmer’ also extends to the narrative buried within the accomplished songwriting of the album, as showcased on Northlane’s excellent new single, ‘Citizen’. Smith tells of how he began writing from an “external, existential perspective about a lot of global and personal topics,” that are close to his heart.
Things changed as the creation of the album was underway. “During the writing process however, we experienced a few losses in our inner circle which we felt we had to write about from a personal perspective. So there are songs about personal and global experiences.”
The journey towards ‘Mesmer’ for Northlane has been one of growth, both professionally and personally. “With every record, we learned about what worked and didn’t and refined it,” says Smith of the finished product. “We matured as a band with a new lease on life and played a lot of amazing shows, culminating in a headline slot at the 2017 UNIFY festival. We’ve been pushed harder than ever and have come out the other side stronger than ever.”
‘Mesmer’ is available now via all digital platforms and through the band’s official website. Northlane will also be at Download Festival this year, performing on June 9.