3 out of 5

Label: The Kora Records

Produced by: J. Robbins

Tone’s flexible base sound of slow build, slowly evolving instrumentals has provided for a rich, consistent discography. They can flex harsher or more ambient, depending on an album’s needs and its direction, and the years have helped to hone that approach without older albums losing their vitality: the decisions made for a song make / made sense at the given time, whereas that same template rewritten might go in a slightly different direction. Followers like Godspeed or Red Sparowes or, later down the road, bands on labels like The Mylene Sheath, would enhance some discrete aspects of Tone’s sound – the quiet/loud dynamics; the emotion – while Tone continued in the relative background, still flexible, and still sounding like themselves.

Priorities – the group’s sixth album – has a cover depicting two similar looking structures seemingly “struggling” against one another, in opposite directions. There’s something to that within the album’s sound, as the group bounces back and forth between rockers – riffy; bass-led – and slow, airier, guitar-forward material that emphasizes space. Towards the end, there’s something of a meeting with, firstly, Crop Circles, a 13-minute noisy but patient track, and then a militaristic punch via A Just Shoot’s marching beat. Circles is the one to really land the combo, but it’s again done in parts: here’s part one, which is noisy; here’s part two, which is gentle… and so on.

Wrangling this is constant companion J. Robbins at the boards, with this being his last album as the sole producer / mixer (at least up through 2025); followup Antares would breathe some fresh air into Tone via additional mixers. Robbins’ predilection toward motion in his works, and his familiarity with Tone, may have led to the album’s overall lack of peaks and valleys. Tone’s cleverness is in their subtleties; Robbins approach works when the group is at its loudest and fastest, but things get kind of lost in the middleground when we’re slow, and guided by guitar lines. Given the album’s half-and-half approach, it just never really gets to feel like its wholly exploded or emoting. We’ve caught the band between priorities.

It’s still Tone; it’s compelling stuff, but there’re sharper and more directly affecting works in their catalogue.