Review Summary: Underneath grind their way back to life
Try as they might, but Underneath will never be able to escape the shadow of their back catalog, at least not without a good fight. When the band wiped their entire discography from streaming services earlier this year to announce a complete rebirth of the band, a lot of fans were understandably left asking “why!?”.
From the Gut of Gaia is still going to be one of my favourite albums of the year, whether the band likes it or not. They can wipe it from the internet, but I will never forget. So now that the cycle of rebirth has been completed, and Underneath have emerged from their cocoon with their first “official” debut, it poses the question: what exactly changed?
Well for starters, Underneath is a full band now, and you can tell. Whereas their previous material was pretty much all written and recorded by Joey Phillips alone,
It Exists Between Us feels much more like a collaborative effort, for better or worse (but mostly somewhere in the middle). In addition to the band sounding more fleshed out and organic, Underneath have also sidelined a lot of the chug heavy deathcore influence in a bargain for more lightning fast Aborted style grind riffs. There are still some knuckle dragging breakdowns and half-time stompers here, but the band just sounds faster and more maniacal than ever as they focus on shorter and more condensed songwriting.
It Exists Between Us comes out of the door absolutely swinging with energy, but fourth track “Habsburg Jaw” most clearly showcases the best and worst of the bands stylistic shift by (somewhat awkwardly) stapling together a wide variety of riffs and tempos.
If one thing hasn’t changed about Underneath, it’s Joey’s absolute disdain for Christian Nationalism and the existential nightmare of surviving under a system that defies your entire existence. This vitriol is fully evident as he lays down one harrowing vocal performance after another. The closing duo of “It Exists Between Us” and “It Dies Within Us” acts as two sides of the same philosophical coin, but whereas the former still maintains some momentum and a faint flicker of optimism surrounding the connections and shared experiences between us, the latter brings the pace all the way down to convey the utmost amount of dread. Tacking the longest and slowest song onto the end of an otherwise blitzing ride doesn’t exactly help with a consistent listening experience, but one thing is clear; Underneath’s riff department has not suffered at all during this process of rebirth.
At the end of the day, the band essentially just veered toward a faster and more grinding style of death metal. Sounds great to me. I don’t think it’s far enough removed from their old material to warrant a full reboot, but if this is the new footing that Underneath want to start on, then
It Exists Between Us is a mighty fine step in the right direction. Joey Phillips’ fingerprints are still all over the songwriting here, and as long as he stays at the helm and continues on this new trajectory, I have no doubt that Underneath will become a force of reckoning in the heavy music world. Maybe even with a bit of time and another album or two, people will finally stop asking about the old stuff.
