Review Summary: I went in with such high hopes, only to find myself returning empty handed. Nostalgic love at it's finest.
When I was 19 years old I fell in love for the first time, and it was bliss. The relationship was innocent and exciting at first. We both loved painting, Switchfoot, and cats. We were both comic book nerds. She could quote even more lines from The Empire Strikes Back and Return of The King than I could. But most of all, we had the same perspective on basically everything. Life, music, hobbies, religion, joy, friends, politics. In essence, I felt like I had found the female reflection of myself, and it was awesome. I truly felt like I had found a soul who resonated with everything I resonated with at a deep level.
We had a lot of fun, but the longer we dated the more complicated it got. It was long distance, she had serious mental health struggles, and we struggled to communicate about real things. Eventually, the relationship became codependent and gross. It all ended in a messy breakup the day after I moved across the country for her and left me in a despondent aftermath of depression, self medicating and pain that turned into personal growth, maturity, and self knowledge in the following years.
After about a year we agreed to talk again. My hope was to gain some final pieces of closure in order to close the chapter on the book that was my first love. As we talked again, after over a year of relational silence, I quickly discovered something that both horrified and gave me the peace and closure I needed simultaneously: she wasn't the person I loved anymore. Of course, she was still herself, but she had changed - grown in different ways. She tried to strike up conversation about things we used to both talk about and love, but spoke about them ironically. She had converted to a different perspective on spirituality, and subtly belittled me for remaining where I was at in my faith. Even her personality had changed. It came off to me as odd, as she seemed to now embody everything she had once hated, and seemed to be proud of it. Essentially, the her I felt I still loved was the her of the past, nostalgic love, as it were. Everything I had loved about her was gone, and in it's place were things I never would have been attracted to in the first place.
This is how I feel about Underoath's highly anticipated comeback album, Erase Me.
Underoath was my first love within the post-hardcore genre. I remember listening to A Boy Brushed Red... for the first time at 13 years old, and immediately falling in love. The same feeling happened two years later with Define The Great Line. At the time, it didn't matter what they made, I was a fan for life. I remember vividly begging my mom to stop by FYE so I could buy Lost In The Sound..., and jamming it in the car on the way home. I had never heard a band sound the way they did. They wrote songs that seemed to be reflections of things I felt and believed. Spencer's lyrics about addiction and depression were reflections of my own struggles, and Aaron's faith was something I also held dear and as a result I looked up to him.
I'll be honest, I don't actually mind that Erase Me is different. I was expecting that going in. I like to think I'm down with bands changing their sound. Shoot dang, Chasing Safety and DTGL might as well've been made by different bands. The former is a formulaic pop record, the second a post-rock and atmospheric experimental metalcore album. So I'm chill with change. But I have a few small issues with the record, changes aside.
The album isn't bad. It Has To Start Somewhere sounds like a mix of TOCS and the natural progression from Disambiguation. Chris Dudley is far more present on Erase Me, and the album is better for it. I find myself loving essentially every intro, outro, bridge, and instrumental where his electronics can be heard. The intro to Bloodlust and electronics on No Frame especially stand out. No Frame, in general, is excellent and probably the best song on the album. The band also have a few places here where they "call back" to songs from previous albums. The two that stand out are the breakdown at the end of In Motion (calls back to My Deteriorating Incline; "There is no fix/where is my fix?), and the chord progression at the beginning of ihateit (calls back to the first chords of Casting Such a Thin Shadow.) While this isn't my favorite mix of all time, Aaron Gillespie's drums sound outstanding here.
The problem with Erase Me isn't that it's so different from the bands previous work that it's a bad album as a result; it's not. The problem is the album feels like the band have a disdain for their older fanbase. Call this subjective, but it just feels like the guys have a contempt for their previous musical medium. Breakdowns are short and you get this sense that the song wants to hurry past them, which is odd considering DTGL and LITSOS era breakdowns were sprawling, minute long, post rock masterpieces. I found myself feeling confused when Spencer would be singing a verse when it felt like to scream it would have had more impact. I was also disappointed with Spencer's unclean vocal work here. In general, Spencer does one or two different screams on Erase Me; an upper mid scream, and a sort of "hard rock" yell on pitch. Gone are the frantic high pitched screams from Chasing Safety, and gone are the monstrous lows of DTGL through Disambiguation. It's frankly shocking to hear the guy who inspired most modern post-hardcore vocalists basically turn into a monotone screamer.
Another issue is the album feels like a lyrical paradox. Spencer and Aaron have gone to intentional lengths to let us know Oath is not a christian band anymore, but the album feels more religious than any other album from them. Specifically, "Wake Me," "Rapture," and "ihateit" ("God, erase me, I don't deserve the life you give, we don't deserve the life you give") feel extremely religious. Even the album cover is a statue of a religious icon. The result gives off a pretty confusing feeling. If you're going to leave labels behind, don't talk about it like some edgy teenager, just do it and make good music. There are plenty of bands with members who identify as christian, are not connected to the "Christian" music industry and who make great music without talking about it.
Let's talk about cursing. To be clear, Underoath have always been a band who have not used curse words in their music, and for older fans it's something we've come to expect. Now I have no problem with artists using words of emphasis to help us understand an emotion and couldn't care less about curse words being used in music in general. The problem here is the same as above. There's a difference between using cursing as a method of honest emotional expression and using it just to be "edgy" or make a point. I found myself feeling in It All Has To Start Somewhere that Spencer's line "...this is so damn useless" would have been just as impactful without the swear word, and it feels like it's only there to make a statement. It's unfortunate, because it seems like their intention was to present an honest picture of themselves, but the result is all the cursing just feels fake and like posturing.
Another issue here are the guitars. While its awesome to hear more of Chris Dudley on keys, they do it at the expense of the guitars. Most of this album sounds like it could be played with only one guitar. Dudley is making some really cool, heavy, crazy sounding stuff here, but the result is that this is not a guitar driven album. There are probably only three actual riffs on this album. Where is Tim McTauge's insane frantic riffage from their previous albums? Vocally, Spencer takes the helm for the most part here, which is odd to me. Spencer has more than proved he's a good singer, but I was hoping for more of Aaron, especially considering some of Spencer's verses feel a little cringey and you can't help but think Aaron would've done a better job.
To many, this review probably feels emotional and judgmental. Perhaps it seems like I'm stuck in the past and can't accept who the guys in Oath have become over the past decade. 10 years ago I was in high school and life was much different. There were things I hoped to do and the person I aspired to be. I was still young and aspiring, pun intended. Perhaps that's what bothers me about this album, then. It feels like something the band 10 years ago would look at and say "I hope we never become that." I get that being successful as a musician is hecking hard. But there's a difference between creating a product you think will succeed and just making music you love and are passionate about and letting that love and passion show in how good the music is.
As I close, I just walk away feeling sad. It's sad to me because it's sad when someone you love grows in a different direction. With Erase Me, all I can hear is the voice of the band begging for me to "erase" who I think they are, who they used to be, and what they used to mean to me. It’s hard but I think I can grant them that. After all, I went in with such high hopes, only to find myself returning empty handed.
In the end, I'm disappointed by this album, not because I'm an unthinking "breakdown" fanboy, not because they didn't write Define the Great Line Part 2, and not because I don't believe in bands changing or evolving. In the end, I'm disappointed because Underoath has made it abundantly clear that they couldn't care less about all the things that made me love them in the first place. To quote a song Aaron Gillespie released last year, "They don't love me (their earlier fan era) anymore." And in the aftermath of that realization, I realize I, too, have fallen out love with them, and simply love who they used to be. Nostalgic love at it's finest.
