Search - Earthtone 9 :: Off Kilter Enhancement

Transcendency among others

Ray | Fort Worth, Texas | 04/12/2003

(5 out of 5 stars)

""Offkilter Enhancement" is a musical journey reaching out to the boundaries of your emotions and exploring many aspects of the human senses. When I heard "Enertia 65800", I knew this album needed to mine.I'm an American, so the day I special ordered it and it took maybe 1 month, I finally got it. I downloaded many songs of the net by them but felt I should get their album. They are a pretty rare band to come across, and I am very lucky to be one of the people to hear them.The album begins with "Grind and Click", a song with screaming verses yet once the chorus comes in they play a completely different role as musicians as Karl slowly sings among the emotional of the background music behind him "Blows my mind everytime". Once the song ends, your are caught by the catchy chorus and emotion they put into the music."Zechariah Rush" comes off with an entrancing guitar riff with flange before fading into a heavy riff with emotional but not screaming vocals. It then slows back into the hypnotic pase again as Karl Middleton sings. The song continues like this until the end, where guitars and drums collide with the vocals. Once the song ends, you are left breathlessly pleased of how this band is."Off Kilter" was one of those songs, at FIRST, I skipped over and never listened to. But now, it's hard to not listen to it. The drumming starts off the song with a catchy lick and then soars into hard riffs and some screaming, but then Earthtone 9 play a nasty trick on you and go right into the slowest, darkest chorus they've almost ever done. The power to grasp emotional singing as well as screaming amazes me. The midsection comes later and almost scares me. Slow guitar playing almost eerie drumming, then a thrash finale. Wow.The trick is, Earthtone 9's diversity in every song is always amazing. They are not hardcore, metal, thrash, or whatever category you can come up with. They are Earthtone 9. Musical evolution. The evolution of this albums contiues with "0...0...0..." which was the first ET9 song I ever heard I believe. It's probably the mellowest on the album, mixing perfect spiritual drums, almost soft vocals and ethereal guitar work, a song could really mess your mind. It's truly ethereal."I Nagual Eye" then comes on after "0...0...0..." and you are left wondering where this band could go next. Drenched in feedback at first, drumming starts "I Nagual Eye" and goes into heaviness, and then the chorus "Close to collapse" begins with harmonic vocals. A gem in this album.Then, the true masterpiece of the album starts. "Enertia 65800", a song slow and pretty like "0...0...0..." but on a different spectrum. Both songs to be about some sort of love, as "Enertia" starts off with haunting hypnotic and ethereal guitar playing among a drum beat every few seconds. The lyrics are amazingly poignant. "For denial/ You know that have waited for so long to be with you" says Karl in a slow, astoundingly poignant voice as it goes on like this a little longer and goes into a chorus. "Darken my eyes so I will not be/ Hollow my heart so I will be free" are sang in an emotional voice as the chorus stops and the song seems like it'll just end there at 2:30. It tricked me too. The song began the same fashion a couple of seconds later, and then, after almost the same thing replayed it went into heavier and more powerful guitars for the midesction. This brewed into a final chanting of the chorus and a boom of the drum and an ending. The song is almost the most perfect thing to ever be made and one of my favorite songs ever.After the instrumental, "Serpentine Placement" begins with screaming vocals but it's a slower scream then usual. The lyrics are strange and the chorus is similar to "I Nagual Eye", an amazingly catchy chorus that blows your mind. It has a little solo and midsection which fade off toward the end into "Nameless", a song that is a mixture of many things. It starts off with an odd, dry guitar sound and then some hard guitars start and end as the music slows into the verses and Karl sings the verses slowly. The song is a burning song with melodic vocals and no screaming except a line toward the end. It's a great song."Simon Says" is honestly maybe my least favorite of the bunch. It's hard, crunchy and full of screaming and the end is drenched and draped in feedback and it doesn't seem right to me. Oh well.The bonus track is "You Again", a cover a Shihad song of the same name with Earthtone 9's signature style on it. And then it ends. The masterpiece of an album ends. Soaring through anguish, poignance, beauty, darkness and pain you have felt senses you didn't know you had. Earthtone 9 are a band of there own with influences such as Tool. They have a Tool sound but they have a 100% original style. Now they are defunct and never will play again. I will never see them live, and never have being an American who got into them 8 months after they split. I'm just unlucky to get into bands once they break. RIP Earthtone 9...You've changed my life."