Barren Earth was released in the summer of 1996, and at this point, Noisegate's musical language had expanded to include a much wider range of textures, all of which were composed into one another.
In the fall of 1996, now consisting of Trevor Paglen, Nicolas Lampert, and Sean Thomas, Noisegate embarked on their first major tour of the United States, with filmmaker Laura Klein.
This new lineup began reworking the music which became the Towers Are Burning LP, produced by Lars Savage and released in 1998 by the One Hundred Years of Solitude label.
After more touring, Nicolas Lampert left Noisegate and Chris Fitzpatrick and Trevor Paglen began work on Suspended Animation (Vol.
Suspended Animation was released in May 2000, and supported that summer with a lengthy multimedia tour of the US, accompanied by filmmaker Jon Frechette.