UNDERØATH RANKED

Ranked: Underoath

Oh God, here we go, I’m going to attempt to rank the diverse, polarising and in places iconic discography of the legendary Underoath. As some of you may know, Underoath are one of my all time favourite bands, so I found this list particularly challenging. I also realise that for a lot of you Underoath are a band you may not know particularly well, if at all, so hopefully this can serve as a guide to those of you who want to dive into either the band or a style of music you’re not so familiar with.

7) Act Of Depression (1999)

There were only 2,000 copies of Underoath’s first album Act Of Depression available upon release in 1999, and was out of print for a long time until it was re-released by Solid State Records following the band’s disbandment in 2013. And look, it’s not fantastic. In fact, it’s nearly unlistenable in places. The production is very scrappy, but for me the thing that stands out is the performance from original vocalist Dallas Taylor. Not only does he sit on the same scream for almost the entirety of the album, but the preachy, subtle-as-a-sledgehammer-to-the-face lyrics become very annoying very quickly. I can’t say I’d recommend Act Of Depression to anyone, really – it’s no more than very average at best. If you want to hear Underoath (with only a pre-pubescent Aaron Gillespie present from the iconic core line up) play crappy death metal, though, give it a shot I guess. Not difficult to place this record at the bottom of the list.

6) The Changing Of Times (2002)

 

The Changing Of Times was a dramatic sonic change for Underoath at the time; it saw them shift to a more radio-friendly sound, opting for a more post-hardcore orientated approach to song writing and instrumentation and utilising Aaron Gillespie’s voice behind the kit as a counterpoint to Taylor’s harsh screaming. The interplay between these two vocalists really doesn’t work for me, but the groundwork for 2004’s vastly superior They’re Only Chasing Safety is more than visible.

5) They’re Only Chasing Safety (2004)

Now we’re getting to the good stuff. They’re Only Chasing Safety is the first Underoath album to feature Spencer Chamberlain on vocals following Taylor’s departure after The Changing Of Times, and the band’s sound benefits greatly from this change. Even though at this stage Chamberlain is restrained by a weird tendency to try and emulate the high-pitched, grating vocal style of Taylor, there are glimpses of the versatility and power that would come to the fore in later releases (and could be heard on the 2003 This Runs Through EP Until Forever Finds Me) to be found across the track list. Musically there is a lot of cheese on TOCS, but for the most part they took the blueprint of what they started on TCOT and honed it to the point of owning that particular scream/pop vibe and influencing a generation of emo kids to start playing similar music. Tracks like “A Boy Brushed Red Living In Black And White”, “It’s Dangerous Business Walking Out Your Front Door” and “Down, Set, Go” still stand tall as some of the best tracks in the wildly diverse overall collection of Underoath tracks. The Special Edition also gave us “I’ve Got Ten Friends And A Crowbar That Say You’re Not Gonna Do Jack”, which in retrospect was a fitting transition between TOCS and the darker, more aggressive sound that would take shape on Define The Great Line two years later. TOCS is also notably the first album to feature a line up consisting of Spencer Chamberlain (vocals), Aaron Gillespie (drums and vocals), Grant Brandell (bass), Tim McTague (guitar), James Smith (guitar) and Chris Dudley (keyboards).

4) Cries of the Past (2000)

Cries of the Past is the dark horse of the Underoath discography. Released in 2000 on a limited run of 3,000 copies that is long out of print (but since re-released with Act Of Depression), Cries of the Past is a legitimately excellent black metal album that would stick out like a sore thumb (in a good way) if anyone had actually heard it. This is the first record with Chris Dudley on keyboards, and his work really shines on Cries of the Past, giving the album a darker, more sinister and atmospheric feeling that fits the black metal vibe really well. The band also moved away from overtly Christian themes and instead explored more personal and cathartic themes based around a woman’s death and the subsequent events, a very welcome progression considering how tough to get through Act Of Depression is simply because of the lyrics. Taylor’s vocal performance is also a massive improvement from Act Of Depression, made all the more puzzling considering what The Changing Of Times would sound like two years later; this is where his voice is at home. Underoath’s darkest and heaviest album by a long way, Cries of the Past certainly won’t be for everyone but if you’re into extreme metal then definitely give this one a go – you may be surprised that Underoath had an album so dark and heavy in them.

3) Define The Great Line (2006)

Define The Great Line reeks of being 14 for me, and it’s a hugely important album for me. There was a time in my teenage years when My Chemical Romance and Linkin Park were the furthest I’d ventured towards the heavier side of rock music, and I decided to go and find out about some new, heavier genres. I remember someone at school telling me that I needed to listen to The Amity Affliction, and I did. I thought they were pretty cool, and I started listening to some similar bands as well. An older friend of mine found out that I was listening to heavier music and decided to “get me on the right track”, so to speak, telling me to go listen to this band called Underoath. I won’t lie and say that I was immediately in love with Define The Great Line, but it very quickly became my gateway into a whole entire world of other underground genres, all of which seemed to converge in this one sparkling centrepiece of an album. Where I was previously learning Metallica riffs on the guitar, I was now learning “In Regards To Myself” and all three parts to “Casting Such A Thin Shadow”. I wasn’t semi-ironically listening to heavy music because the screaming was funny anymore; I was genuinely captivated by the darkness, anxiety and rawness of Define The Great Line. Up until this point the then current Underoath line up had been torn between two vastly different worlds – the poppy screamo vibe of the album they were touring (They’re Only Chasing Safety) and the cathartic, frantic and violent presence they brought to the stage. If you were to have seen the band perform live between 2004 and 2006 bands like The Dillinger Escape Plan would have come to mind, and yet the music they were playing was in another world stylistically. Define The Great Line set out to bridge that gap, and the result is a record that holds onto the post-hardcore roots of TOCS but pushes it in darker, more violent, bruising territory. Gone are the pop choruses from Gillespie, replaced instead with more asymmetrical song structures and passages. Chamberlain really steps it up on DTGL too, unleashing a startlingly animalistic performance that doesn’t leave any stone unturned. It was difficult for me to place this album at number three on this list, but I tried my hardest to look at it objectively and once I stripped away most of my personal attachment to this album this is where it landed.

2) Ø (Disambiguation) (2010)

Ø was the final album Underoath released before their disbandment in 2013, and was the first album not to feature any original band members when Aaron Gillespie left the band in 2009 (although as far as I’m concerned five out of six of the most important line up remained). Former Norma Jean drummer Daniel Davidson joined the band, and with this change came a further sonic shift – no longer having Gillespie’s voice to draw upon and having Davidson’s more hardcore-orientated style of drumming meant Ø was the band’s moodiest, sludgiest release to date. Chamberlain, now with the sole vocalist spotlight, takes full control and guides the listener on a shadowy, trippy tour of his psyche that manages to get darker and more depressive as it continues on (also very spooky that the last track is titled "In Completion"). The presence of Dudley’s keyboard work is more textural than it has been in the past, but also has a greater focus than previous – “Driftwood” and “Reversal” are great examples of this. The post-hardcore elements of the band’s sound are almost nowhere to be heard, this album being the furthest Underoath ventured into metalcore, and it is also the most progressive of the albums in Underoath’s discography. It sits higher on my list now than it would have in 2013, that’s for sure, but I think Ø is not only a testament to the amount of creative input Gillespie had on the previous records, but a sign of how many other distinct and bold creative voices were also in the band.

1) Lost In The Sound Of Separation (2008)

I'm not the only one who cites 2008's Lost In The Sound Of Separation as Underoath's masterpiece - both Chamberlain and Gillespie say it is their favourite album of theirs in a recent interview with Alternative Press, saying that it is where they "figured it out completely". I agree with that statement 100% - Lost In The Sound Of Separation is the best representation of what Underoath is in its purest form. It's somewhere between Define The Great Line and Ø stylistically, but it is more than simply the sum of those two parts. There is something about this one, something that has not been replicated on any of their other records; a vibe that is completely unique to Lost In The Sound Of Separation. I've already written an extensive explanation as to why I am so obsessed with this record which you can read on this blog, so I'm not going to go on and on (as easy as that would be), but rather leave it at this; if you want to know what Underoath is all about - if you want to get Underoath - then look no further. Lost In The Sound Of Separation is intensely intimate but somehow also universal in its themes of despair, anxiety and loneliness, a balance that is rarely struck to such a successful degree by any band or musician, and it consistently hits a compelling counterpoint of crushingly heavy and breathtakingly beautiful; breathtaking in a myriad of ways. 

There we have it! I'd urge you to dive into the top end of this list if you've never heard of this band, but also especially if you're either into heavier music and never heard Underoath or want to have a better understanding of heavy music (obviously Underoath only cover a very small corner of the heavy music tapestry, but they're a good place to start). For all you fellow Underoath fans, what do you think? Do you agree? What's your favourite Underoath record? And with a reunion period now significantly longer than expected, can we expect new music in the future? Fingers crossed!

Thanks for reading, I'll see you next time.