Album Focus: Northlane

From the moment Adrian Fitipaldes announced he would be leaving Australian metalcore group Northlane, fans nationally and internationally were concerned about the future of the momentous Sydney rockers. 

It didn’t take long for the then four-piece to shut down break up rumours and immediately look for a replacement to continue their journey.

“From the moment he told us he was leaving we began planning our next move,” Smith recalls. “It's always best to see every setback as an opportunity, and this was our opportunity to match the perfect voice to where we wanted to take our band.”

Soon enough Northlane found their new vocalist, Marcus Bridge, allowing the band to regroup their writing structure and the sound they wanted to go forward with. Releasing opening single, Rot, from their now-released third album, Node, Northlane seemed to have found similar results to their previous work with an extra melodic influence.

 “Instead of just a vocalist writing everything I worked with him taking care of most of the lyric duties,” Smith reveals. “There was also more collaboration and input on opinion from other members than ever before so Node is more of a representation of us as a whole.

“We knew it would be polarising, even just for the sake that we'd had a line-up change. It was a huge opportunity for us to test the waters. We are always trying to push the boundaries of what we can do as a band with every release, and Node goes even further than we have in the past in this aspect.”

Enlisting long-time producer Will Putney during the development of the record was an easy decision for the group with the sound engineer taking time to work with Bridge and discover an environment best for him.

“Will has actually worked on all three of our records; he mixed and mastered, Discoveries (2011) and produced, mixed and mastered Singularity (2013). He was a huge help, as a producer he really helped us not stray too far from our original sound while incorporating all the new ideas we wanted to include, and get the best performance out of Marcus possible.”

Northlane are now looking to continue their momentum as an internationally respected metalcore group, representing Australia all around the globe.

“We don't often think of it like that when we're touring the world but we're always flying the flag for Australia,” Smith says. “People from around the world think very idealistically about Australia because we've demonstrated that people from any corner from the globe can live in peace without grievance. It's sort of seen as a paradise, in almost another world, because of what we have to offer, and that makes me very proud.”

Originally published in X-Press Magazine