Heavy Metal Nation is a place for fans of heavy, interesting music to come and read, write, and comment on articles about heavy music. If you’re searching for brutal and aggressive metal, you’ve met your match with UNEARTH. Combining elements of hardcore, thrash, and extreme metal – while also never overlooking the importance of thought-provoking lyrical ideas and concepts – UNEARTH has steadily become one of the leading lights in heavy metal.

Look at the careers of all great metal bands, and there is a certain album that pushed the respective group to the next level. The March, the forthcoming fourth full-length from UNEARTH is bound to be that album for the band, as it contains all the expected elements from earlier UNEARTH classics, while also managing to drive their sound forward.

Hailing from just north of Boston, UNEARTH originally formed in 1998 with a three-man core – singer Trevor Phipps, guitarists Buz McGrath and Ken Susi – and were subsequently joined by bassist John “Slo” Maggard. Derek Kerswill’s union with the band marks UNEARTH’s latest addition, resulting in what many consider to be the band’s most potent line-up of all.

Over the years, UNEARTH has issued a steady stream of modern metal classics, including such full-lengths as 2001’s The Stings of Conscience, before signing with Metal Blade, and issuing 2004’s The Oncoming Storm. All the while, UNEARTH continuously crisscrossed the globe, becoming one of the hardest – and most consistent – touring bands in all of hard rock. Over the years the quintet has played in the US, Canada, UK, Australia, South America, Mexico, Japan, Europe including the Netherlands and their first ever headlining trip to Russia, and has appeared not once, but two times each on such renowned metal fests as Ozzfest and Download. They have also appeared on International festivals such as Rock Am Park, Rock Am Ring, Loud Park, Wacken and others. In the process, UNEARTH has toured alongside some of rock’s top names, including Slayer, Slipknot, Killswitch Engage, Hatebreed, Lamb of God, and many others.

But with the arrival of 2006’s III: In the Eyes of Fire, UNEARTH scored their most worldwide successful album yet. Produced by Terry Date (who has worked with Pantera, The Deftones, and Soundgarden), the album debuted at #35 on the Billboard Top 200 Charts. And according to Phipps, the album’s purpose was a simple one. “It seemed like a lot of bands were falling in that trend, where more of the harder hitting bands wanted to gain more fame, and put more pop-oriented sounds into their metal and hardcore. That record was a statement for us – to show people you could still write a heavy, mean record and continue a solid level of success.”

The album instantly earned unanimous glowing reviews, as Blender.com hailed it as “Easily a front running candidate for Metal Album of the Year,” while Revolver Magazine called it “A stunning accomplishment, one that repeatedly pushes the boundaries of heaviness, yet contains enough sonic and lyrical layers to give the songs depth and staying power.” One of the highest compliments came in Rolling Stone Magazine, from Slipknot frontman, Cory Taylor. “It’s like Anthrax and Megadeth rolled into one. It’s everything you want in a great metal song.”

After wrapping up an extensive tour in support of III (including some of their biggest headlining shows ever) and seeing their first-ever DVD, Alive from the Apocalypse reach gold status in Canada shortly after its release in early 2008, UNEARTH got to work on their latest offering. Back on board was the producer of their earlier albums, Adam Dutkiewicz. The end result is an album that includes such metallic gems as “Grave of Opportunity”, “Crow Killer”, “My Will Be Done”, “Hail the Shrine,” and “We are Not Anonymous.” The lyrical content has once again stepped into a challenging realm as they range from overcoming personal hardships to questioning government, politics and organized religion.

Phipps claims “This is our most crushing record to date. We pulled back some of the speed on this album just a bit so we could make the tunes more pummeling.” He added, “The record has everything we have brought to the table in the past, the thrash, stomp, groove, melody and classic metal elements, but the song writing continues to improve. We are all proud as fuck of this album.”

Unearth enter Zing Studios with Adam D; announce Justin Foley as studio drummer

Unearth has entered Zing Studios with producer Adam D. of Killswitch Engage fame. This album will be the follow up to 2009's The March, and will be followed by an intense touring schedule with a new, yet to be decided, full-time drummer in the lineup.

Vocalist Trevor Phipps has posted the following update:

"We wanted to let everyone know that tracking for the new album has officially begun! We're currently at Zing Studios in Westfield, MA tracking drums with our sit in drummer for the album Justin Foley of Killswitch Engage/Blood Has Been Shed. Foley was an obvious choice for this album for many reasons, but mainly because of his abilities and knowledge of heavy music as well as his long time friendship with the band. A decade plus of friendship has made this an easy transition for the band, Foley and our producer/engineer Adam D."

In other news, we have decided to change the mixing engineer for the album to Mark Lewis (The Black Dahlia Murder, White Chapel, Devil Driver, Trivium, etc.) from Audiohammer Studios. Mark is another long time friend of the band and we're excited to hear what he can do with our sound on record."

Guitarist Buz McGrath added this irrelevant comment about working with Mark:

"Mark Lewis mixed me a drink once and I woke up in a swamp covered in anti-freeze."

Phipps adds:

"As we said before, we're aiming at a mid to late June release for the album followed by massive world touring.

Interviews

• Buz McGrath Interview (Audio) by Danzig Wentz

Reviews

• The Oncoming Storm review by Pharmer4

Updated Sunday, 13 February, 2011 0:34 AM