Artist: Underoath
Label: Virgin Records
Release: 2006
It was 1998 when the emo/screamo outfit UNDEROATH was born in Florida, in guitarist Luke Morton’s bedroom, to be exact. After that unusual start the band is still going, but with a hugely changed lineup – every single member has been swapped out by now, and the only one who’s been there since day one is then-drummer and vocalist Aaron Gillespie. At first the band played less melodic, harder-to-digest music, but that changed with the release of their debut. Their sound got more melodic and started flirting more and more with emo core. The guys recorded their first three records with singer Dallas Taylor, and in 2003 then-screamer Spencer Chamberlain joined, whom we can hear on the last two records. Besides the singer swap, founding member Luke Morton also left the band, and many other lineup changes among the remaining members have followed since. The Florida screamo crew can boast five released records and this year’s DVD in their (almost) 10 – year career. The first creation, released a year after the band formed, is ACT OF DEPRESSION. Even that one brought them some success, but a bigger breakthrough into the realm of known names was waiting with the new record CRIES OF THE PAST (2000). THE CHANGING OF TIMES is the last record with Taylor’s screams on it (it came out in 2002), while on the album two years younger, THEY´ RE ONLY CHASING SAFETY, you can already hear Chamberlain’s voice. After the singer swap, success and tours started pouring in. That’s how Underoath ended up at the well-known Taste Of Chaos and Warped Tour, alongside Taking Back Sunday, Atreyu, Poison The Well, The Used and the list goes on! On top of all that, they were even nominated for the prestigious Grammy award, in the Best short video category. After all of that, last year they delighted us with yet another record, DEFINE THE GREAT LINE. And to make the wait for the next album easier, we can treat ourselves to the DVD UNDEROATH 777, which they sent to store shelves this year.
I got hooked on Underoath the moment I heard them! The opening track IN REGARDS TO MYSELF took care of that, with singing and screaming woven together. The real specialty of this band is definitely its vocals; the softer parts (meaning the singing) are handled by drummer Aaron, while the roaring and screaming is all Spencer. A hard start leads us into the slightly friendlier track A MOMENT SUSPENDED IN TIME, which doesn’t mean there’s no screaming in the song! THERE COULD BE NOTHING AFTER THIS is the third song, pleasant to listen to, but still packed with all the band’s trademark riffs. The loudest opening is definitely on YOU´RE EVER SO INVITING, which isn’t all that different in content from the previous songs, but there’s a surprise in the middle: a calm section that instantly reminds me of some emo track. The ending ties into the next song SALMARNIR, which in my opinion works as a kind of border on the record between the noisy and the slightly calmer, since the second half of the album is a lot friendlier than the first. Really slow and mellow! RETURNING EMPTY HANDED then cuts through the aforementioned (temporary) friendliness and goes back down the old road: thrashing, singing, screaming… CASTING SUCH A THIN SHADOW is similar to the fifth track, only much livelier, with a big chunk of the song instrumental, and some fleeting screaming and singing towards the end. Fast riffs, loads of screaming and an insanely good track: MOVING FOR THE SAKE OF MOTION. Pure emo style! Next up is my favorite track, WRITING ON THE WALLS, which starts with just vocals and the scraping of guitar strings that soon go berserk, and once again we get an excellent song! At the end the Underoath storm calms down a little, and for a moment we think the song is over, silence falls, and then more bellowing to close it out!!! Then comes the most brutal track on the album, EVERYONE LOOKS SO GOOD FROM HERE. The main ingredients are just merciless grinding on the guitar strings and merciless screaming, with no normal singing. But a great melody makes it a mean track! The last song is TO WHOM IT MAY CONCERN. A track that really does give you the feeling at the start that something is coming to an end, since it’s almost the only one that isn’t so brutal and in-your-face, and the vocals, which unlike the other songs aren’t too wild, win us over. But everything nice has to end sometime, and here too. It’s not quite the end of the song, rather that well-known screaming kicks in again, the one we already thought wouldn’t show up. The ending is almost identical to the beginning, so slow.
After 11 songs the record wraps up, the band is busy on tour, raking in millions, and the fans are probably all thrilled with the new record! So we can all be happy and satisfied and eagerly awaiting the band’s new exploits!
Lineup
Spencer Chamberlain – vocals
Christopher Dudley – keyboards
Timothy McTague – guitar
James Smith – guitar
Grant Brandell – bass guitar
Aaron Gillespie – drums, vocals
Production
Adam Dutkiewicz, Matt Goldman & Underoath
Track list
1. In Regards To Myself
2. A Moment Suspended In Time
3. There Could Be Nothing After This
4. You` re Ever So Inviting
5. Salmarnir
6. Returning Empty Handed
7. Casting Such A Thin Shadow
8. Moving For The Sake Of Motion
9. Writing On The Walls
10. Everyone Looks So Good From Here
11. To Whom It May Concern
Album length: 47.00
