Photo credit: Dan Newman
With eight years having passed since we last heard new music from Underøath, that near decade-length absence weighed heavily upon music lovers’ hearts. When you consider all of the bands that formed using their idiosyncratic power and texture as blueprints (and then hearing those pretenders fail anyway), you can clearly see the hole Underøath left behind. Whatever real-life worries, psychic baggage or other concerns plagued Spencer Chamberlain, Aaron Gillespie, Tim McTague, Chris Dudley, Grant Brandell and James Smith at the time of their 2013 farewell tour, Underøath’s collective consciousness has been fortified by a renewed commitment to their art. And more importantly, themselves. Never was an imposition more on point: On their Fearless Records debut Erase Me, Underøath have added another crucial chapter to their formidable legacy. When the band went in the studio in the summer of 2017 to record their sixth album with producer Matt Squire (Panic! At The Disco, 3OH!3), they knew exactly what they wanted to do as well as what they needed to do. Having already established themselves both as melodic songwriters (2004’s RIAA-Certified Gold record ‘They’re Only Chasing Safety’) and as ambitious power merchants (2006’s stentorian, gold-selling Define The Great Line and its majestic follow-up, 2008’s ‘Lost In The Sound Of Separation’), the evolution detailed on ‘Erase Me’ finds them using the sonic dialects they’ve crafted to reveal where they are now. Continue reading
