Undeath: At The Forefront Of Death Metal
It will not have escaped anyone’s attention in the world of death metal, UNDEATH have had an exceptional rise. Cranking out powerful and engaging riffs and with an attitude injecting some humour into what can at times be a genre that takes it self too seriously. However, the weight of their initial impact and continued presence is an eye opener. When we had a chat with lead singer Alex Jones, he freely admits, “none of us anticipated how far this thing would go.”
With a recent tour taking in the sights of China, Japan, Singapore and Australia, UNDEATH are in the beginnings of a global domination campaign. Bringing their brand of death metal to as many people as possible. The strength of their latest release, the utterly bombastic More Insane, has catapulted them to a whole new level. We wanted to find out a bit more on the earlier days of UNDEATH and what has led them to the cutting edge of modern death metal. Reflecting back on how the band geminated from an idea through to physical presence, “we formed right around Thanksgiving 2018. I (Alex) had been wanting to do a death metal band for quite some time, and one day Kyle [Beam, guitars] just hit me up out of the blue and asked if I wanted to try out on vocals for a band he was putting together with Matt [Browning, drums]. I said yes, of course, and they already had most of the first demo written by the time I showed up for the first practice and got the job.”
For those familiar with their back catalogue and certainly with More Insane, will know how integral Alex’s vocals are to the UNDEATH sound and structure. Those early try out moments must have sparked something essential, because they’ve clearly never looked back. Even if they only had humble expectations in the beginning, as Alex explains, “I don’t really think there was a clear vision for the band early on besides just making some death metal and hopefully playing some local shows too.” They have far outstripped whatever early plans they may have had.
It is perhaps this gritty determination that they deliver on both record and live that is one of the biggest factors in their glowing success. The whole death metal genre is enjoying a healthy resurgence, Alex opines of the situation. “When UNDEATH started I think us and our peers were just kind of sick of the uber-technical, soulless death metal that was popular at the time and we all had a shared desire to bring the genre back to its slightly more primitive roots. Bringing the focus back to riffs and hooks rather than trying to bowl people over with flashy proficiency. That’s always been important to us.” When pressed on what makes a good UNDEATH hook considering their growing back catalogue is littered with exceptional moments, Alex is deadpan but good humoured. “…Probably notes, right? Notes played on an electric guitar with the gain turned way up. Lyrics too, I guess. Lyrics growled over those aforementioned notes. I think that’s probably a great place to start.” He’s not wrong of course.
When discussing the writing of the album and whether it differed from the creation of It’s Time… To Rise from The Grave, Alex explains that it was a straightforward affair. “The writing process itself didn’t change that much, to be honest. There were new avenues of melody and specific songwriting stuff that we wanted to explore, but as far as actually getting the songs written and practised, it was kind of business as usual.” Business as usual makes the concept of More Insane sound very tame indeed. Fortunately, Alex is happy to offer a livelier if apocryphal alternative. “Sorry, that’s not very exciting. Scratch all that. We spent $60,000 on blow and wrote the record in a night.” With joking aside, and focussing on the music and particularly those new avenues mentioned. More Insane, when taken as a whole collection of songs, is a cut above what they’ve done previously.
One of the stand out elements on the new record is the production and the partnership between the band and Mark Lewis. This collaboration has generated some of the best music committed to tape this year. As Alex tells it, it’s a great working pairing. “It was great. Mark is the best. From the moment we met him and realised that he shared our extremely juvenile sense of humour we knew it was going to be a perfect fit. He’s an absolute beast of an engineer and a pleasure to work with. If anyone bugged the control room and got recordings of the kind of shit we were saying to make each other laugh, this band is absolutely fucked.”
Along with the massive riffs, bludgeoning rhythms and obvious humour. What else do UNDEATH channel to carve out their approach. “This is kind of played out but FUGAZI is kind of the guy I always look to when it comes to deciding how to operate within this band,” Alex offers. “I frequently find myself asking whether or not FUGAZI would be cool with certain decisions we have to make, and then I go from there.” Then with a laugh continuing, “they didn’t like moshing, though, and I love moshing, so I still need to trust my gut sometimes”
One thing is for certain, UNDEATH have made their presence felt, they’ve brought their sound to global audiences and off the back of More Insane their meteoric trajectory is set to continue. Do not miss out on one of the most exciting acts of modern death metal.
More Insane is out now via Prosthetic Records. View this interview, alongside dozens of other killer bands, in our glorious print magazine in Distorted Sound Issue 114 here:
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