Review Summary: I am the downpour.
Underling may be a supergroup of sorts, but they’re the low key kind. Comprised of a variety of Bay Area metal veterans (including the likes of Fallujah, Arkaik, Battlecross, and Sidian) the band hit the scene in a fashion no one would call explosive. Ironically enough,
Bloodworship is an absolutely thunderous debut full length. It’s not thunderous in the usual sense, as their black metal label implies, by just being fast and loud and heavy. There’s a great deal of scale to it. It is fast and loud and heavy often enough, but its feels so very
large for other reasons. It’s large in the vast number of musical styles incorporated, in the fierce aggression of the instruments, and in the emotive violence spewing from the microphone. Underling sound like this is where they want people to start paying attention, and promptly.
It’s admirable that the very first song is a curveball. Those familiar with Underling’s early EPs will recall the effective, if vaguely by the numbers, blackgaze style they peddled. However, “Blackout” opens with a stripped down atmospheric build into a massive doomy modern metal riff that hits
hard. Their post rock and shoegaze influences come into play soon enough, but it’s not the only trick in Underling’s bag. Hell, it’s intimidating how many different influences are worked into
Bloodworship. There’s death metal, doom, melodic hardcore, even dashes of post hardcore smashed against their original sound. It’s a difficult task for any band to meld so many disparate ideas together, but
Bloodworship is surprisingly cohesive. Perhaps it’s the consistently tortured screams flying over the top that gives it that sense of unity, but it works.
Underling are at their best when they focus on measured buildups and gorgeous melodies, stemming from their post rock and shoegaze influences. Certainly “Blackout” and “Servant of Filth” are bone crushingly heavy, but there’s an emotive weight to “Downpour” and “The Seventh Wall” that really turns heads. The latter in particular calls to mind something from Fallujah’s
The Flesh Prevails, complete with shimmering atmospherics and elegant croons from guest vocalist Byanca Munoz. There’s generally quite a bit of weight to everything done on
Bloodworship, much of it due to the lyrical content. Extreme metal isn’t known for featuring heavily emotive and personal topics, and that’s a part of why Underling stands out. There’s depression (“Downpour”), addiction (“Servant of Filth”), and even newfound appreciation for life after a near death incident (“Clawing at the Rot”) covered across the album. It adds a great deal of conviction to Underling’s sound, making their music all the more convincing and intriguing.
Underling isn’t just another blackgaze band any more. Certainly, a part of them still is, but they clearly want to be more than that. They want to channel a hundred different moods, with aggression and intimacy in equal parts, while remaining emotionally engaging.
Bloodworship is that, and much more, heralding the arrival of one very interesting act into modern metal.
