9.05.2008

DO CHRISTIAN BANDS HANG OUT TOGETHER?



I'm not the first to be surprised about the relative goodness of Underoath's new album, Lost In The Sound Of Separation. Take a free listen here and you, too, will agree it's a solid B+ effort, which is an A++ in Christian rock terms. Kinda like when that Pizza Hut rep dropped off a shitload of their new macaroni and cheese and all over my office people were heard to comment "Not bad. For Pizza Hut. From 15 minutes ago." And Underoath is so 15 minutes ago.

For starters, that Underoath is a Christian band is, historically, a deal-breaker per HooM! Hindustries' strict policy regarding support to lame religious people. The one exemption successfully rammed through HooM! governing bodies was on behalf of He Is Legend: The North Carolina quintet (above) rocks way too hard to truly abide by anything but Satan's will, or at least that's my desperate hope as I now notice that the band played this year at something called Life Fest in the middle of Wisconsin. Oh boy. 

Anyway, Underoath takes a page from HIL's bible with Lost to the extent that it's practically criminal, though singer/fancy haircut owner Spencer Chamberlain (snicker) prefers the scrine (scream + whine = scrine) over HIL vocalist Schuylar Croom's raspy singing. But even for all of Lost's similarities to HIL's 2006 classic Suck Out The Poison, Underoath remains in the Busch leagues which HIL left behind two perfect albums ago thanks to their secret weapon, guitarist and brutal-riff-dispenser Adam Tanbouz. Listen to fresh demos here


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