"Coyotes" Stalk the Borderlands of Underdark's Incensed Post-Black Metal (Early Track Stream)
COVID-19 has been the star of the “systemic disasters to worry about instead of sleeping” show for quite some time, but the United States’ allotment of waking nightmares also includes the ongoing humanitarian crisis at its southern border. This has been a fairly long-standing issue, and it was certainly not made better by four years of fascist-thirsting policy capped off by a mismanaged pandemic. Now, we’re in a sort of “nine-inch-knife-pulled-six-inches-out” scenario, so it’s not too surprising that it continues to draw global attention. UK post-black-metal outfit Underdark is set to release their debut album Our Bodies Burned Bright on Re-Entry soon, and this particular issue is the focus of the first single “Coyotes,” which we’re premiering below. A strong command of atmosphere-building texture and extremely well-placed harmonies drives this song right through the heart — listen now.
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While staunchly anti-fascist, Underdark doesn’t lean on their morals or their message in place of songwriting—”Coyotes” solidly demonstrates the band’s command of emotional transportation, taking a quiet melody and building it into a thundering wall of plaintive rage by the end of the song. The lush mental imagery the song conjures thrives in the less aggressive sections, taking on a life of its own between hammering blast beats. Whipped up into a frenzy of speed and fury, the end of the song discards all that to crash down to earth with a powerful progression of chords that echo the opening lament.
However, there is a message here, and the simultaneous beauty and despair that “Coyotes” evokes is uncomfortably appropriate for its topic, vaguely hinting at the sheer scale of the tragedy and the collective damage done.
Vocalist Abi comments:
THE ALBUM IS READY. You thought we were dead. At times, we thought we might be too, but we’re here, we’re (mostly) alive, and this is COYOTES. It’s one of the first songs I wrote in Underdark and it’s about the ongoing humanitarian crisis at the Mexico/US border. Hope you’re as stoked on it as we are.
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Our Bodies Burned Bright on Re-Entry releases July 30th, 2021 via Surviving Sounds Records (UK), Through Love Records (EU), and Tridroid Records (US/Can).
