Shalom. Tampa, Florida’s groundbreaking and popular act Underoath has been labeled with more adjectives in a religious and non-religious manner than most rock acts could ever pray for or complain about, but the best way that one could and should describe the band is with one word: Awesome. Yeah. Through various lineup changes for pretty much every instrument, the group has released nine full-length albums, several live ones, various retrospective compilations, and even a few greatest hits records. Also, in a feat unmatched by many others in the “scene” world, five-sixth of the band has been exactly the same since the band’s fourth and ever-so-popular 2004 record “They’re Only Chasing Safety.” You may be surprised (and chasing safety) to see where we rank that album and the eight other total full-lengths before/after below. Down, set, go:
9. “Act of Depression” (1999)
Let’s start at the beginning: Drummer/vocalist Aaron Gillespie is the only current member on Underoath’s debut LP “Act of Depression,” which truly lives by its title for the listener. The record strictly consists of long and confusing songs that cleverly have a total run-time of fifty-five minutes and fifty-five seconds, but that’s where the fun ends. Basically and bluntly, this lone 20th-century release for the band will likely never get placed on a “Best of the ‘90s” compilation album… And that’s ok as the band pretty much ruled the Warped Tour and Christian Rock world in the early aughts. Next!
Play it again: “Heart of Stone”
Skip it: “Watch Me Die”
8. Cries of the Past (2000)
“Cries of the Past” kicked off this century for Underoath on July 4, 2000, and is the act’s first album with current keyboardist Christopher Dudley. It’s not much better than its former, but we likely ranked the LP higher because Dudley added some atmosphere to a band that seemingly didn’t have any prior. Zing. Also, like “Act of Depression,” the band continued the tradition of overly complicated songs that go nowhere, but five songs at forty-two minutes and fifty-one seconds is even crazy for a Periphery album! It’s hard to be progressive without being progressive.
Play it again: “Giving up Hurts the Most”
Skip it: “Walking Away”
7. The Changing of Times (2002)
2002’s “The Changing of Times” is the band’s first truly polarizing album and it is the only pre-Spencer Chamberlain (more on him later) LP that we at The Hard Times have seen public love for; the universal consensus amongst all that have listened to Underoath’s expansive catalog is that the first two albums are better left unread. “The Changing of Times” is the group’s third effort, and it is good at times, but not great overall. Sorry. Shortly before the band solidified the majority of its lineup on its next and fourth release, guitarist Timothy McTague joined the band for this LP and vocalist Dallas Taylor exited shortly after it came out. Fun opinion: Dallas really came into his own with the Southern rock-influenced metalcore act Maylene and the Sons of Disaster, and if you don’t agree, you’re dead wrong. Sadly, he had a life-altering ATV accident in 2016. We’re all thinking of him and his family over here.
Play it again: “Never Meant to Break Your Heart”
Skip it: “814 Stops Today”
6. Voyeurist (2022)
This may or may not ruffle some rock and roll feathers, but “Voyeurist,” Underoath’s most recent full-length, just didn’t stick with us at our first listen or inspire many more afterward. Overall, it felt like a lower quality and inconsistent batch of songs, and is the first to showcase a semblance of patchiness since the album listed prior. Happily, the band closed “Voyeurist” with one of its better post-2010 songs “Pneumonia,” and is slowly but surely returning to all protein and no fat form on its two most recent follow-up singles from 2023: “Lifeline (Drowning)” and “Let Go.” Here’s to a solid (state) follow-up full-length!
Play it again: “Pneumonia”
Skip it: “Numb”
5. Ø (Disambiguation) (2010)
The album for the record titled with a character that isn’t easily attainable on Google Docs is both the band’s first and last without Aaron Gillespie on drums and vocals, and the only release with talented former Norma Jean drummer Daniel Davison on the skins. It is also very likely ranked higher here than you may have thought, as we at The Hard Times like to keep ya guessing and complaining. Admittedly Davison had big shoes to feel (Aaron eventually became the tour drummer for fucking Paramore for a bit), but Mr. Gillespie justifiably sang the act’s and Davison’s praises on this 2010 LP. That form of solidarity from a then-former band member isn’t what one often sees with a public relationship change and it was quite nice to hear about, as the kind words showcased some solidarity that one doesn’t often see with former members in division.
Play it again: “In Division”
Skip it: “Reversal”
4. Erase Me (2016)
After a not-so-long split from 2013-2015, Underoath released a comeback album via Fearless Records with both drummer/vocalist Aaron Gillespie back in the habit and an “F Bomb” front and center for all to gasp at. Jesus. In addition (or division), the band also said goodbye to the Cornerstone label and simply became a band filled with some Christians. Moses. This album may have turned some dissonance lovers off with its high-quality radio rock, but we’re all here for a mainstream audience digging good music. It has to start somewhere.
Play it again: “Rapture”
Skip it: “In Motion”
3. They’re Only Chasing Safety (2004)
Post-hardcore and screamo bands were at their respective peaks for success in 2003 and 2004 so this album came out at the perfect time…. And what a storm it was. The band had three new members for this huge LP: Guitarist James Smith (who just left the band earlier this year; like we alluded to earlier, he’s the only one to do so since this record), bassist Grant Brandell, and new vocalist/screamer formerly of This Runs Through, Spencer Chamberlain. Admittedly, Spencer’s screams here weren’t in tip-top form, but he only got better and better at such for their latter releases; keep scrolling down, dear reader. Still, this album was truly the band’s breakout and contains several undeniable singles that the band still plays regularly. Fun opinion (part deux): If the single “Reinventing Your Exit” was released on a major label in 2004, the then-young-and-aspiring Underoath would’ve been a much, much bigger mainstream rock band.
Play it again: “Reinventing Your Exit”
Skip it: “The Blue Note” (instrumental)
2. Define the Great Line (2006)
Our two favorite UO albums sometimes shift from number one to two and vice-versa, but regardless of which one you prefer of the final two listed here, 2006’s “Define the Great Line” was their biggest game-changer sonically and critically. Debuting at number two on the Billboard Charts is no small feat, especially for an album that was deliberately created in a brutal, rough-around-the-edges, and non-mainstream manner. Our punk rock hearts respect the fuck out of this. To whom it may concern, for this release and the one listed below in the gold medal slot, we recommend a front-to-back listen sans skips. Don’t @ us.
Play it again: “Everyone Looks So Good From Here”
Skip it: Don’t. Jesus insists you listen to the whole thing.
1. Lost in the Sound of Separation (2008)
Although there weren’t too many “hit singles” on 2008’s “Lost in the Sound of Separation,” the record contained eleven heavy-in-the-best-way experimental songs that should NOT be slept on. Relisten to it now and read on. Ok? Good. Aaron Gillespie went out in style on this release, which showcased his chaotic drumming in a manner that is unrivaled by most in the “scene” or outside of it. Also, it’s badass that the last words of track one, “Breathing In A New Mentality” are, “Let me start again.” Clever, clever.
Play it again: “The Created Void”
Skip it: Don’t (Part Deux)
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Barely worth my time, he’s only on the list so I have someone to practice landing the twister on. I’ve almost got it.
Riddle me this, nerd: Who has two wolves inside him and a +3000N punch for your smug face? This guy.
Not that this chump presents much of a challenge to begin with, but my boxing skills are on point. I’m just gonna blast my jabs so fast that the wind force blows him away.
Kung-fu is so ‘80s my guy. The shred-man is no match for my radical mix of krav maga, Muay Thai and Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu. Plus I have a gun.
One hit to the head and this college professor slips into an alter-persona where he thinks he’s King Tut reincarnated. One hit by ME to the head, he won’t be thinking anything at all, ever again.
The guy is short, fat, and owns a nightclub. Sounds like a bunch of dudes I’ve already assaulted. And sure, he’ll probably fire me as a bouncer just like they did, but not before I crack that monocle with a right hook.
I gotta admit my man is pretty jacked for a skeleton. Too bad they don’t teach Brazilian jiu-jitsu in Eternia. No contest, chump. I’ll nap each one of his bones.
“Venom” is actually a hybrid of the Venom symbiote and disgraced journalist Eddie Brock, so technically this is gonna be 2 on 1. Fortunately for me, the symbiote will recognize this work, and ditch Eddie to bond with the superior male, making me more powerful than ever.
This guy’s whole superpower is that he’s the world’s smartest man, so basically there are about a million ways I can lump up this nerd. If he’s really that smart, he better just go run and hide.
This pansy “emperor’s” arch-nemesis was the quarterback for the New York Jets. I totally could have gone pro if I didn’t get kicked out of school for trying to blow up the soda machine in the cafeteria, and I damned sure would have wound up on a better football team than the Jets.
2009-2012 were years of major change for Pennywise and the band’s fans as frontman Jim Lindberg surprisingly quit the group in 2009. The act trudged on and put out just one release with Ignite’s singer Zoli Teglas on the mic. For more information on what led to this, read Jim’s great book “Punk Rock Dad: No Rules, Just Real Life” and then watch the touching and revealing documentary, “The Other F Word.” Anyway, it must be said that “All or Nothing” is a solid LP, and has a large amount of public streams to showcase such, but Pennywise just isn’t Pennywise without Jim Lindberg on vocals. Stand strong, Zoli; Ignite still rules. Still, we wish that the group modified its name to “The Act Formerly Known As Pennywise Featuring Three-Fourths Of The Aforementioned Band With The Dude From Ignite Containing The Name That Often Gets Misspelled” and then all PW fans would be united on eleven LPs. Yeah.
If this list had just eleven LPs and the prior mention was completely omitted as a true Pennywise entity, “Yesterdays” would most certainly be ranked last in this piece as it feels more like a revisited B-sides-that-weren’t-good-enough-to-utilize-the-first-time compilation than a tried and true full-length album. Happily, the recordings aren’t half bad and it’s Jim’s first record back in the band itself, so we didn’t bitch that much when it was first released.
A wise entity not from a Stephen King novel once told us that, “Good is the enemy of great.” Those six words totally encapsulate 2005’s “The Fuse.” Basically, this one doesn’t stand out or offend, so its low spot on this list makes complete sense. Even mid Pennywise is better than most bands in that world, so we hope that famous and infamous PW guitarist Fletcher Dragge doesn’t kick the shit out of the entire staff at satirical/100% brilliant-and-never-incorrect-critical-take site The Hard Times for the commentary on said record (and the band’s other eleven full-lengths). We love the Pennywise band, we really do! Just look at our cargo shorts and chunky Vans. That should be all the proof you need.
We think the fact that 2008’s “Reason To Believe” was a slight departure from the band’s earlier material made it fail with hardcore fans from the start. The icing on the hater cake is that the record was released on MySpace as a worldwide digital download and in physical form on MySpace Records. Gross to some, but forward-thinking to others. Still, we can’t justify the abhorrence towards this LP and need to publicly say that it has some very high-quality songs. In fact, it’s the first album listed in this piece that we sometimes revisit. After all, we have nothing to lose, trolls.
2018’s “Never Gonna Die,” Pennywise’s most recent LP and singer Jim Lindberg’s second album back with the band after his brief sabbatical truly sounds like a return to form. This most recent batch of new material in the form of fourteen songs truly lives by its album title, as the band aims to stick around post-armageddon. Fuck Armageddon… This is hell. Sorry. If you’re a fan of Pennywise, you know what you’re going to get when you spin a new album, and this one shows that the band won’t give up the fight. We’re still eager for more!
Pennywise fans were given seven fresh new albums this century thus far, and this lucky number seven entry known as 2003’s “From the Ashes” is most certainly the band’s second-best release from the past twenty-three years; the four piece’s best from the aughts and beyond is listed below at number six. Still, “From the Ashes” is a catchy and melodic fourteen-song record that may have benefitted from a few song omissions, but we’re also more than fine with the way that it is. What’s your hot take? Don’t answer that.
The 2001 Pennywise record “Land of the Free?” also doubles as a rhetorical question and contains one of the band’s most popular and singalong songs “Fuck Authority.” The album is quite a fun listen from start to finish, and we’re definitely not alone in thinking such. Overall, this is without question the band’s best LP to be released this century, and not-so-coincidentally the remaining five listed below are all from the ‘90s, and nothing pre-2001 has been listed here thus far. Our bad. Time marches on.
Fun fact: Two songs on this thirteen-song LP have the word “burn” in it; shut up, Butt-head. Anyway, 1993’s “Unknown Road” is the first album from the ‘90s to be ranked thus far here, and it is a cult favorite amongst Pennywise fans who are either going to either set this city aflame or smile like an idiot regarding this slot placement; it will very likely lead to urban destruction. Our bad. Regardless, the band put it best in the song “Homesick” where Jim sang, “The city used to be such a beautiful place.” Epitaph Records’ ugly-ass compilation known as 1994’s “Punk-O-Rama,” which spawned NINE sequels, features “Dying to Know,” our favorite song from this album, at track five. The monumental green “Punk-O-Rama” likely exposed many to the group and its kindred spirits in the aforementioned “Big Five.” If not, we’re posers and you aren’t. Mazel.
Here’s where we get sad: 1997’s “Full Circle,” Pennywise’s fourth full-length, is the band’s first post-original bassist Jason Thirsk release since his tragic death in 1996. Because of such, the band re-recorded its most played live and likely requested song “Bro Hymn” from the next album to be mentioned here with references to Thirsk’s life as “Bro Hymn Tribute” in an extremely impassioned and touching manner. “Full Circle” is a hard-hitting tribute to a bandmate who sadly never had the chance to hear the band sing his praises. If you have a shit joke to make on the matter, get a life.
Sorry, bro(s), even though it truly kicks ass in a non-sardonic way, the band’s 1991 self-titled LP is not the band’s best album, and much like your misguided nostalgic thoughts on the also solid “Unknown Road,” your opinion is sadly outdated and dead fucking wrong; we don’t make the rules here. Still, it’s quite badass that Pennywise opened its groundbreaking debut LP with a song called “Wouldn’t It Be Nice” like fellow South Bay punk-as-fuck act The Beach Boys did 25 years earlier on the 1966 classic “Pet Sounds,” and it’s even cooler that the band still regularly performs this song at shows over thirty-plus years later. Basically, “Pennywise” should be required listening to all new fans of the band and we all can agree on that. Right?
Listing Pennywise’s last album to come out this century in the silver medal spot may shock both casual and hardcore fans of the band, but this overly slept-upon release deserves much, much more public love. The album’s title “Straight Ahead” is literally exactly such in sonic form, and the track “Alien” is one of the best singles in the band’s expansive catalog of catchy-ass songs. “Greed” is a hell of an opening track as well and perfectly leads the listener into seventeen wham-bam-thank-you-ma’am tunes. The band ended the 20th century with style and sans a digital boy just for you! Read below for our favorite PW LP!
Epitaph was on a hot run in both ‘94 and ‘95 with (listed chronologically) The Offspring releasing 1994’s smash “Smash,” NOFX coming out of the gates with the oft-revered “Punk in Drublic,” then-former Epitaph act Bad Religion changing the game with “Stranger Than Fiction” and 2/4 of Operation Ivy opening barricades with 1995’s now-classic “…And Out Come The Wolves.” Just before Tim Armstrong became a household name with the latter, the headliners of this article released “About Time,” a concise and rocking collection of unskippable twelve tracks that doesn’t relent till its end. To put it extremely, extremely mildly, “About Time” is the skate punk release and perfectly encapsulates Warped Tour when Vans was in its title. Up the punx!
Putting Angela in a Misfits cover band would be musical malpractice. There is no way she would be on board with the “Dead cats hanging from poles” line, and not to mention she’s openly Christian so she would get pretty uptight about all the demon references.
I’m not going to lie, on paper Robert California is a good candidate for this band. He’s charismatic, probably knows a guy that can do merch for cheap, and knows about spooky stuff, but there is one big problem. This isn’t a Graves-era cover band. No replacement players. Keep moving Bobby.
Cathy is one of the most hated characters in the history of the show. I just can’t be associated with her. I’m already on thin ice after I backed my car into my neighbor’s pool and then left without telling anyone. Being seen with Cathy is a death sentence.
Being an elected official already rules you out of being a part of this project. I’m going to need full dedication, I want someone that is willing to quit their job so we can make sure we know “Where Eagles Dare” backward and forward. There is no way a politician would be willing to work that hard for one night of glory.
This man can’t be trusted. He might be a solid worker and a great bandmate, but in the back of my head I’ll keep thinking he’s just using the band to get close to my wife so he can steal her away. Now it’s true that I don’t have a wife, or a girlfriend, and I haven’t felt the touch of a woman in over a decade. But still.
I don’t even know why I hate this guy, but I do. He just looks like the type of guy that would tell me about all the movies that Misfits songs reference. Newsflash buddy, I don’t give a rip. Stay away from me and stay inside on Halloween you creep.
There is no way that someone who names “Legally Blonde” as their favorite movie is going to know anything about the Misfits. Plus, there is no way she’s going to be willing to dye her hair black and wear a devilock.
Rolf is a loose cannon, and that might seem like a decent quality you want in a punk bandmate. But I don’t want to be on stage, in front of tens of people on our big night and have somebody smash me in the head with a stage monitor because I suggest we skip playing “20 Eyes.”
Charles has all the physical attributes I want in a band member, mainly it’s someone who is big and could easily beat the crap out of anyone who makes fun of our tight pants. But Charles is a corporate shill, I want someone willing to quit their job so they can dedicate their life to this important project.
She might be the closest in age to the real-life Misfits and since she lives in Florida she probably has some of the same politics. But I don’t want to have to worry about one of our members breaking a hip mid-set.
Clark is the type of guy that would be like “You play in a Misfits cover band? Yeah, I listened to them when I was 12 then I grew up.” And then he would talk about how underrated Guided by Voices is for the next two hours.