I recently had an intense conversation about the history of metal with my boss (and his boss) at a bar, and the crux of it is that the best part of metal is when you need pure escapism and gleeful sonic abandon. Few bands showcase that notion (with such uncanny knowledge of musical history) as Rochester’s finest.
On their sophomore record, It’s Time… To Rise From the Grave, out now via Prosthetic Records, Undeath hone in their brand of maximalist death metal, zombifying their sound to epic heights. Most notably, however, is how damn catchy and immediate It’s Time is. That was by design, as vocalist Alexander Jones acknowledges.
“We take the music aspect of the band very seriously. We’re all just fans of metal and of music in general. And I think when we go into the writing process for most of our stuff the thing that’s at the forefront of our minds is, ‘Would we enjoy this as death metal fans? If I saw a band playing these riffs or playing these songs at a show, would it make me want to party and throw down and mosh and shit?’ Yeah, that’s always what we’re trying to achieve. We just want people to have a good time, and I feel like the best way to do that is by having a good time, yourself.”
“We had like five or six songs before Prosthetic signed us, and then all of a sudden, we had to have the album finished by a specific date, so we were kind of in crunch time. For this new record, we definitely had a lot more time because not only were we already writing it by the time Lesions of a Different Kind was recorded, but we didn’t really have any tours or anything on the horizon because COVID was still very much like we were in lockdown mode.
“So with this one, we were definitely way less rushed. We had more time to really focus on the things that we liked the most about Lesions: all the choruses, all the hooks. Just making sure that at least one part in every song that you could come away with or remember in what’s just like an unintelligible mishmash of riffs that constituted a song. We wanted to make sure everything was a song. And just having the added luxury of more time to kill, more time to write, definitely made the songwriting stronger, I think.”
“The band that I was in before Undeath was way more intense and serious lyrically. There was a lot more very emotional and more philosophical adjacent lyric writing going into that kind of stuff. And it was a good time for a while, but towards the end of it, right around when Undeath started, I was definitely feeling that itch to be a part of something that had more of that escapism. Just with a little bit more turn off your brain and just enjoy the ride. I think that’s always been important to us.”
“It’s always been our ethos with the band,” Jones states. “There’s so many bands out there that have really important things to say, that spend a lot of time crafting the way that they’re going to present these ideas and they really want to ruminate on very serious concepts. And I have the utmost respect for bands like that, but Undeath has always just been about the music first and the message is kind of the music. We want people to be able to come into the record, and if you’re a fan of metal, if you’re a fan of riffs, if you’re a fan of just losing yourself in a good time, we want you to pick up the record and just forget about the outside world and COVID and all the real serious, real scary shit that’s going on in the world for 35 minutes and just enjoy yourself.”
You’re telling me that there’s no philosophical underpinning between “Head Splattered in Seven Ways” and “Human Chandelier?”
What I love about Undeath is they are to death metal what Scream is to slashers. They know the rules but gleefully subvert them in ways that are interesting and funny. There’s also this emphatic new wave British heavy metal influence throughout. There’s a clear desire to build beyond the established death metal formula. What was the musical process like for you guys on this? Jones answers:
“I’m glad you picked up on the new wave British heavy metal stuff because that influence was really in the forefront of a lot of our writing for this album. When we were writing Lesions, those were all just us trying to do our own thing, but we spent so many nights just listening to Morbid Angel and Cannibal Corpse and Autopsy that those riffs and those ideas kind of beat into our DNA. But with this album, I know Kyle and I specifically, we were listening to a lot of Judas Priest. That band is just such a shining example of how to construct a metal song. If you look at a record like Defenders of the Faith or British Steel or Screaming for Vengeance, the songwriting on those albums was just fucking perfect.
“Like you said,” he adds, “you know what’s coming. You know you’re going to get the big dual-lead solo; You know you’re going to get the huge chorus. But every single time, the way that it hits you and the way that they tease it out and when they drop it, it’s just so satisfying. And I think Kyle specifically had a lot of conversations with himself and with us where he was like, ‘How do we apply that rubric to a death metal song?’ Obviously, you can’t just play Judas Priest riffs tuned in A flat standard. It’s going to sound terrible, but what does that look like? What do those building blocks look like in a death metal context?
“That was the process for a lot of the writing for the record–creating death metal pop songs, in a way. And I’m stoked with how it turned out because I think a lot of my favorite death metal albums, like Morbid Angel’s Covenant, Cannibal Corpse’s The Bleeding… A lot of the songs have just straight-up pop structures. They take you to the chorus, take you to the solo, and we’re out. That’s the shit that we wanted to replicate.”
Here’s the kicker, and why listening to Undeath is all about the joy of music and feeling:
“Ultimately in our writing process, it comes down to, what’s the shit that we like listening to? When I’m wasted and just sitting around my house, what’s the record that I reach for first because I want to just fucking let loose and have a good time? Nine times out of 10, it’s something like Judas Priest. Because I know all the words; I know all the solos. It’s a blast to turn up really loud. And we wanted to make an album designed for moments like that, an album that in your mind is synonymous with having a good time, but it’s still death metal. And that was our mission.”
Watch the video for “DEFILED AGAIN” here:
For more from Undeath, find them on Instagram.
Photo courtesy of Errick Easterday
