It Took The Internet Less Than A Day To Solve Northlane's Single Puzzle

Presumably, there is a significant number of average people out there who not only tolerate but actively engage with drip-feed marketing tactics, a point evidenced most recently by the fact that it took the internet just under 12 hours to piece together Northlane's newest cut, Leech, which the band had released in 26 parts across the web.

To be totally fair, the song's release — the third to come from new album Node, after Rot and Obelisk — is a flawless demonstration of the power of social media and fan engagement, as 10-second snippets of the song popped up everywhere from Reddit and Twitter to Facebook and SoundCloud under the hashtag #nl6633 — and the masses responded with enthusiasm, taking to their copies of Logic Pro or GarageBand or whatever the kids are using these days to order and connect the disparate parts of the song.

However, once some eagle-eyed fans pointed out that clues had actually been planted in some Node behind-the-scenes videos the band had previously uploaded to YouTube a month ago, featuring split-second screens of what appeared at the time to be a random string of numbers, which — in the wake of Leech's reveal — suddenly gained new meaning for those poindexters who remembered they existed.

Overall, the community rallied to hunt down and find 26 separate parts, then crack a code and assemble a song — and Northlane are the ones getting paid. 

From there, it wasn't long before the final song was completed - in fact, plenty of Redditors had gotten within a hair's length of pulling it off but had a particularly hard time sourcing parts 15, 18 and 25. It all came good in the end, though — check out the official released track streaming exclusively here and below!

Node is released on Friday, 24 July, via UNFD. Check out a trailer for the album below.