Earthside
If truth is so important—so hallowed that we hold it as perhaps our most sacred tenet—then why do we go to such great lengths to deny it the moment it makes us uncomfortable or goes against our narrative?

In 2015 four young and irresponsibly ambitious musicians released their heartfelt understanding of truth in A Dream In Static—a rare and uncompromising debut of emotional gravitas, unconstrained creativity, and song craft well beyond the artists’ individual ages.

8 long years removed from their critically show-stopping entrance, the idealistic thinkers and feelers in Earthside found themselves in a different world entirely … or, perhaps, a world more honest and unhinged than they and many others had bargained for.

Artists strive to never lose touch with their inner child—that wide-eyed amazement that comes from experiencing a goosebump-inducing chord progression, and that persistent urge to ask “why?” when the answer offered isn’t sufficient. Following the ADIS album cycle, the members of Earthside began writing their next record immersed in this fiery inspiration … in a way that was both unfamiliar and detrimental to their day-to-day lives.

Years of recording and scrutinizing, a pandemic, and nearly 80 minutes of music later, the group’s idealistic ambition and absurd commitment to quality had all but broken them. But good can come from the abrasiveness of confronting the truth and humbling oneself before what we do not fully know and have only assumed.

Indeed, Let The Truth Speak is truly an international affair, featuring vocalists and storytellers from all walks of life and corners of the globe. "On A Dream In Static we were a brand new band so working with our heroes was both a bucket list item and served to distinguish ourselves among the many up-and-coming bands at that time,” van Dyck says. “On the new record it felt far more meaningful to use our platform as a way to showcase voices and musicians that needed to be heard. It also allowed us to take greater creative risks.”

For a band that has only released one album and a handful of new singles over the better part of a decade, the Earthside name has garnered a near cult-like association with quality and ambition—it’s a reputation the members themselves are keenly aware of.

The path to completion, as long, grueling, and agonizing as it may have been, has born undeniable fruit in the eyes of the band. “It was brutal making this album,” van Dyck says. “But in walking away from the finished result, we all seem to have this sense that the 15 or 16-year old versions of ourselves—perhaps the fully developed inner child in each of us—would have been over the moon at what we’ve created—and that’s an extraordinary feeling. If this work has the ability to reawaken that deep thinking, feeling, and creating part of even a few people who hear it in the midst of the increasingly cynical and vacuous world we live in, then as artists we feel we’ve done our job.”