Underøath
Voyeurist

After a single and far from flattering release ('Erase Me', Fearless Records, 2018) in the 5 years since their return to the scene, it is time for Underøath to expand the catalog of a career now nearing its 25th anniversary.

'Voyeurist' sees the band revisit and understand their most successful records, capturing something from each to reemerge through one of their most exciting and complete works ever written to date.

Aggressive, familiar yet at the same time foreign; a powerful blend that is typically Underøath but also a novel projection of the artistic visions of the Tampa combo. A tense, dynamic, strange, "voyeuristic" album.

Listen to 'Hallelujah' to believe: not even the time of "ready, set, go" and it's the reflective self-attack that the band deals to their religious past, to individuals and institutions (who ask people to look up but never within themselves), along with how vocalist Spencer Chamberlain abruptly interrupts the chorus mantra, serving as a highlight for chaotic and noisy post-hardcore. So good as to imprint the incisive and heavy DNA of 'Disambiguation.'

Like in a pattern repetition game, angular guitars raise impenetrable walls around the effects of the keyboard and its distorted glitches, offering them a safe place to thrive like dark ornaments to the gloomy metalcore arrangements.
This is also a novelty, because although Chris Dudley's synth has long been an integral part of the lineup, here his work places him in the spotlight as a key element for the band's compositions.
An encyclopedically proportioned demonstration of integration between instrumental rock and synthetic sounds to rain down on mainstream counterparts.

A dynamic in which Underøath has always excelled, made of light catchiness and dark heaviness, supplemented by a vocal chemistry between Chamberlain and Gillespie that is more invigorated and solid than ever, while a dry and faded production in the background helps cement everything.

Underøath warns us for being all voyeurs peeking into the lives of others. Sometimes indirectly, sometimes consensually, other times less so.
Just as people who will tear this album apart will warn and intervene with preconceived notions about how a new Underøath album should sound, a new post-hardcore album in general.

Yet, the longer one observes this disc, the harder it stares back at us.