Today, Underoath has unleashed their sweeping new album Voyeurist on Fearless Records. Voyeurist marks the first time in Underoath’s storied career that they took the recording process completely into their own hands with help of engineer JJ Revel. The result is the most collaborative and ambitious album of their career, anchored in a profound respect for each other and a mission to leave no stone unturned creatively. The band refers to Voyeurist as “high-def violence” - technologically advanced, but undeniably visceral. The album is available for streaming and purchase here. Conceptually, the 10 songs that comprise Voyeurist have several interrelated meanings, each tying back to the concepts of technology and how we curate ourselves through social media, and how that facade masks the majority of the authentic experience and connection we have in life. The album is a cohesive listening experience with enough layers to provide fans with a fresh take and new favorite track on every spin. Leading up to the album release, fans have been able to discover clips of new songs in exchange for granting camera access through the albums interactive website, voyeurist.io. The band gave fans a chance to experience Voyuerist live before its release with their recent Digital Ghost streaming concert - a full album performance that served as a spiritual successor to their lauded Underoath: Observatory livestream event from 2020. You can sign up to watch the encore performance of Digital Ghost on January 27th here.
Album singles “Damn Excuses”, “Hallelujah”, “Cycle” (ft. Ghostmane), “Pneumonia” and “Numb” revisited the classic and crushingly heavy songwriting skills of the group while introducing new electronic elements and a sense of maturity that speaks to the ambitious nature of this new era of the band. Focus track “We’re All Gonna Die” serves as a darkly beautiful and haunting reminder of the heady themes of the album, anchored by chaotic guitars and soaring vocals meshed with a lush layer of synths and percussion. You can watch the official visualizer here.
Speaking on the themes of the album and “We’re All Gonna Die”, guitarist Tim McTague has this to say:
"The album concept came out of the larger idea that everything is a manipulation…from the news to social media to how you present yourself, even to the people closest to you. Everything is part truth and part fiction. We wanted to strip Underoath back down to exclusively truth and cut out all distractions - and made the record on our own along with our engineer JJ Revel. The result is Voyeurist."
"We wrote the demo for ‘We're All Gonna Die’ on one of our last tours and the main riffs and chorus ended up making the album version. We fought that song a lot lyrically as the chorus is very nihilistic sounding, and the more we tried to dilute it the more the song talked back and said no. We ended up getting to a spot where the song is dark (and it should be) and the title speaks to a position that every person holds, whether it’s for a blink of a second once a month or as their mantra. Life is tough and I hope the song meets people who are struggling exactly where they are.. and in context of the record gives them hope."
Voyeurist vinyl, merch and more is availabe here. Underoath will embark on a North American tour starting in February with support from Every Time I Die and Spiritbox. Tickets are on sale here. The band will be hosting a Tunecast listening party on January 18th and discussing the album as part of an official Reddit AMA on January 28th.