Underoath – Erase Me

Underoath just released their eighth album ‘Erase Me’.  It’s their first release since 2010 and I have mixed feelings about it.  I normally assume everyone knows who Underoath is because they were one of the biggest bands in the early metalcore days, but then they went on hiatus and almost ten years later there’s a new generation of kids that have probably never listened to ‘Define the Great Line’ or ‘They’re Only Chasing Safety’.  If you’re newer, trust me that this band got a ridiculous amount of people into heavy music.

That being said, this album doesn’t quite live up to their old reputation.  Too many songs have a new-age Bring Me The Horizon, radio rock type of vibe.  “Wake Me, Bloodlust, ihateit, and I Gave Up” are the biggest offenders.

I’m disappointed because when they released “On My Teeth” as the first single I really thought that they had preserved their 2010 metalcore sound and were going to bring back the greatest era of metalcore music.  Based on that one song I was confident that they were going to pick up right where they left off eight years ago.  It was as if an ancient beast had awoken from hibernation to reset metalcore on the right path.  Although “On My Teeth” has high end production, the raw elements and frantically fast-paced instruments harken back to an older style.

However, none of the other songs live up to that reputation and I wouldn’t even label half of them as metalcore.  Way too often you end up with a weird mix of Spencer Chamberlain’s screams being layered on top of the more ambient, modern rock style that he had in his side project band called Sleepwave.  I sort of get the ambient feel that Underoath tried to achieve here but the way it turned out just isn’t great.

On top of that, this album has cringey lyrics mixed in with some of the darkest lines they’ve ever written which is a weird combo that throws the listener off.  I couldn’t care less about the fact that they’re now using swear words, which was off limits for them before because they had a massive Christian reputation to uphold, but I think that also adds to the absurdity.

Two hidden gems.  If you can sit through the first 2/3 of “No Frame”, it doesn’t even get that much heavier, but the way everything comes together at the end is a classic Underoath move that reminds me of their old stuff.  Also, “In Motion” is the best primarily soft song on the album.  The cleans sound inspired and the incorporation of the screams was done well.