Underoath - Erase Me

For all metal’s historic controversy with a huge part of the “Christian right” it has offended with its continued sacrilege, the upside-down crosses and pentagrams in black metal band logos and album covers and Slayer’s live shows are naturally no longer a media-ready shock factor and much of the anti-metal church has simply moved on to other issues. Taking swipes at metal’s biggest and longest-standing target and the world’s most prominent religion is undeniably pretty low-hanging fruit, and has been for decades at this point. This is not to say metal bands need to stop it and do something else; bands like Behemoth, The Ocean, and the notorious Marilyn Manson have made poetically interesting and genuine critiques of many facets of religion that extend beyond the shock factor that only rarely comes with doing so now. But conversely, many bands’ cheap shots at Christianity (such as those from Deicide, Ministry, and, yes, Slayer) are lazily overdone and speak more to a lost sense of edginess than against the religion they attack. In short, metal isn’t the public threat to religion it used to be, and its status as a semi-fringe culture largely against organized religion is on an of-course basis. Kerry King, and probably not even Nergal are doing a whole lot of conversion by preaching to the choir for the most part. I bring this up because the context and content of Underoath’s comeback album is one of metal’s biggest and most real upheavals against religion of the past decade.

One of the most significant (if not the most significant) pillars of the Christian metalcore movement of the early 2000′s, Underoath’s disbandment after their 2010 album without founder Aaron Gillespie, Ø (Disambiguation), was disheartening to many of their fans, but the band’s subsequent reunion under less faith-restricted terms soon became even more so. Disillusioned by the lack of support of the Christian community around him during his public struggle with drug addiction (compounded with his feelings of hypocrisy surrounding touring under the “Christian band” label as a struggling drug addict and uncertain believer), lead singer Spencer Chamberlain’s (as well as Aaron Gillespie’s and Tim McTague’s) existential and identity crises became the struggle that composing Erase Me medicated. Openly and publicly rejecting the Christian label upon their band, Underoath all but burned that bridge with their first use of profanity in the album’s lead single, “On My Teeth”, in which Chamberlain declares to either the drugs that enslaved him, the Christian community that demanded perfection from him, the God he now believes abandoned him, or all three: “I’m not your fucking prey”.

Undoubtedly Underoath’s most contextually significant album, Erase Me is the band riskily genuinely expressing themselves and their struggles with the faith that has helped build their name, and their decision to step away from it as a band at least. It’s an easy decision to understate, but the significance of this move to the band’s fanbase and the Christian metalcore world as well is nothing minor. The band have received both appreciation and support, as well as vehemently expressed disappointment and disdain for their revealing of their truer feelings about the faith they championed and made their careers off of.

With a fair amount of controversy surrounding the lead-up to the album’s release, the album itself, from a lyrical standpoint, is no bluff either. Spencer pulls back the veil hiding the scars his drug addiction and disillusionment with Christianity have left him with, but rather than simply slandering his former God like early Marilyn Manson, Spencer lashes out at his vices, his faith, and himself. It’s an album worth reading the lyrics to. 

For the band’s newfound sincerity about their personal beliefs and honest self-identities on this album, Erase Me comes with an unrelated drawback in the form of potential/probable musical mimicry to a degree. Despite their assertions that they took no influence from them, Underoath follow the stylistic trajectory of Bring Me the Horizon on this album a bit, and on some songs, the more overtly accessible alternative metal formula is used well, but on songs like “Bloodlust”, “Wake Me”, “In Motion”, and the second single, “Rapture”, fall into all the potholes the formula provides.

But I’d say the album’s highlights shine brighter than its pitfalls. “It Has to Start Somewhere” makes tremendous use of the band’s familiarly dynamic heavy metalcore sound under Spencer’s lyrics about his struggling to see prayer as anything but a useless performance. Lead single “On My Teeth”also makes similar use of the band’s old sound, enhanced by the improved range of Spencer’s impassioned vocals, a triumphant (and bold) return to the spotlight for the band made exceptionally vibrant by Aaron’s battering of his snare drum. “Sink with You” is a expression of Spencer’s struggle with drug abuse at the hands of a God whom he sees as apathetic to his suffering, a cry made more visceral by the fuzzy, bassy industrial backing behind the repeated refrain of the song. 

Though the verses and chorus of the song “Ihateit” are another example of fruitless BMTH formula-following, its redemptive, heavy bridge takes an important lyrical departure that reveals the morbid and self-critical meaning of the album’s title as Spencer screams “God, erase me / I don’t deserve the life you give / I don’t deserve the life you give / God, I can’t change at all.”

The album’s most vulgar song “Hold Your Breath” is an example of the alternative metal formula producing more vibrant results for the band, with the climax of the bridge bringing the song’s message of anti-elitism in the religious context to an explosive finish as Spencer shouts “I’m not your pawn anymore" and Aaron echoes “I’ve come all this way alone.” The industrially tinged builder “No Frame” finds Spencer musing on his numbness to the message of faith in God he delivered on albums and at shows, his “blank stares” out to the crowds that bought into his band’s image.

“I Gave Up” concludes the album in a fashion a bit less full-throttle than I would have liked to hear on such a lyrically explosive project, but not so much that it destroys the album’s mood.

Overall, despite the bite of the most important album of their career being noticeably undermined by an unnecessary following in Oli Sykes’ footsteps, Underoath came through with a truly vicious and emotionally open effort on Erase Me, more than they ever have before. The critique the band provides of the Christian culture and spirituality they experienced emerging from within it is more visceral than any half-assed low-blow Deicide or Burzum take at it. At its worst it’s eerily similar to That’s the Spirit; but at its best, its Underoath at their realest, most brutally honest, and most emotionally satisfying, with a fair handful of serious metalcore pit-starters.