As Northlane usher in the new era of their creative and professional careers, we’re telling you here first: This is their world now, and we’re just living in it. It’s been some years now since the Aussie act broke the mold of ‘local band’, but now, they’ve emerged out of the pattern reserved for even our most illustrious exports, sharing a bone-shaking new jam to punctuate a legacy-defining deal with gaming powerhouse Ubisoft.
First, the single. ‘Clockwork’ follows hot on the heels of the bands hyper-successful 2018 album Alien, and creatively, makes sense considering that album was steeped in EDM influences. ‘Clockwork’ begins as an atmospheric, cyclonic jam before the eye of the storm hits in an unholy union of growls, distortion, double kick and digitalised crush.
“‘Clockwork’ reflects the pressures and anxieties I felt as we jumped back into writing after an uninspiring year”, Northlane vocalist Marcus Bridge flexes. “I always want to push myself creatively but with life on hold and with no end in sight, I felt empty and lonely, running out of time as our self-imposed deadline approached.” For the clip, the band has stolen a page from the book of Nolan, throwing us deep into a story with no clear beginning or end, adding kilos to the intensity.
In terms of Northlane’s new partnership, ‘Clockwork’ has been declared the official theme song for Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six Siege Oceanic Nationals esports League 2021. The title has around 70 million loyal players. “We’re really excited to be able to work with Northlane for the Oceanic Nationals, Rainbow Six Siege’s premier esports league in our region,” said Edward Fong, Managing Director of Ubisoft Asia Pacific.
“As esports continues to grow in Australia, it opens up more opportunities to collaborate with other industries and talent to provide our players more ways to connect with their favourite games. We’re thrilled to have Northlane’s new song ‘Clockwork’ as the theme song for our local Oceanic Nationals.”
Northlane have shown us there’s no stop to this now, and yet somehow they haven’t reached cruising altitude. How many ARIAs does a band really need?
