It has to start somewhere… A lot of feelings are being blasted out of your speakers, headphones or whatever you’re listening through. So many things in one song, or actually, in all the songs if you continue listening.

After a break from 2013 to late 2015, Underoath is back with a new album Erase Me. What a title to have for your comeback album. Maybe because Underoath is back temporarily, or maybe just to make a point. Which point though is the next question. It’s a Christian band, but not all songs involve their religion or are about their religion. Christianity is of course important to them, or to some of them, but the album is very open to all religions or non-religious people, as the songs can be interpreted differently from each point of view.

The first song on the album ‘It Has to Start Somewhere’ seems a goodbye to God. Unclean vocalist Spencer Chamberlain and clean vocalist Aaron Gillespie are talking about prayers that have never been answered. About not being listened to.

‘I don’t believe at all
That I’m the monster you make me.
Don’t Understand it
Don’t need your grace
You were never listening
To the words I said
I’m done with you
I’m done’.

If God is out there, why are people suffering with mental health issues and addictions? Why is there so much suffering going on in the world? These are questions that this song asks. Will you ever get an answer to those questions? Who knows…

Rapture takes a different approach. It has a calmer way of spreading the message. The message of seeking pleasure, or maybe satisfaction is a better word, but not finding it. You want the change, yet you’re tied down to the same spot. On My Teeth was the first song we heard from Underoath after their musical break. It’s also the first song where Aaron Gillespie joined on clean vocals. A song about what drugs do to you, a song about Spencer leaving Christianity. A heavy song with a lot of emotions. Wake Me is a calmer song. It has less scream vocals and it even has a piano part. Something I didn’t expect to be there.

‘It’s easier to sleep,
Than to face it awake’.

This is such a powerful line. Something that a lot of people are experiencing. Some people might not know how to actually wake up. The definition of depression right there. Everybody needs a reason to be awake. If you don’t find that reason, you’ll sleep through your problems.

This album has so many powerful songs on it. The album might be hard to listen to on an emotional level, but all that’s said has the truth in it. Even if it’s a truth we don’t want to see. An album that absorbs you all the way to your last nerve and beyond that. To come back on the question in the beginning of this review: Why ‘Erase me’? I don’t think this is because the band is only going to be back temporarily. The title is just as personal as the whole album. Sometimes life attacks you and you feel like you don’t want to exist anymore. I think that’s where the title refers to.

Release Date: April 6, 2018.
Label: Fearless Records
Tracklist:
01.It Has To Start Somewhere
02.Rapture
03.On My Teeth
04.Wake Me
05.Bloodlust
06.Sink With You
07.ihateit
08.Hold Your Breath
09.No Frame
10.In Motion
11.I Gave Up