Song of the day: #8 earthtone9 – "Tat Twam Asi"

i'm still kind of ambivalent about bands reforming as a rule, but it's definitely better when it's amazing bands and/or those who were underappreciated the first time round (i'm still not condoning, say, The Who playing live with only two original members or whatever).

This year's been pretty great for amazing and underappreciated reformations so far: first Godspeed You! reassembled and even get to curate their own ATP, and now the almighty earthtone9, without doubt my favourite metal group ever, have got back together as well!

Staggeringly slept-on first time round, it's now been ten years since the Nottingham group released their best and final full-length arc'tan'gent, which mixed proper dirty riffing with calmer, reflective passages, wonderful soaring melodies with brutal screaming. Vocalist Karl Middleton (also of The Blueprint, Twin Zero, Blackstorm) is to my mind one of the best in the whole rock game.

These days their albums are as rare as dog parachutes, but the band have helpfully put together a freely downloadable career-spanning greatest hits package entitled Inside Embers Glow and available from http://www.earthtone9.co.uk to prime the unfamiliar for their return. i'd recommend it as an ace collection even if, like me, you've already got all the records.

There's only one planned live date at the moment, at Damnation Festival in Leeds, but with any luck they'll play a full tour before much longer.

"Tat Twam Asi", from arc'tan'gent and also featured on the compilation, is maybe the quintessential et9 song, featuring both the broodingly melodic and full-on furious sides of the band inside five minutes, as well as the sort of questing/reflective lyricism they regularly explored.

mp3: earthtone9 – "Tat Twam Asi" (YSI)