photo credit: Angel Park

Written by Angel Park

When Tampa, Florida-based band, Underoath, announced their separation and departure from the growing hardcore music scene back in 2013, fans of their distinct, cutting edge metalcore sound was left with so many questions, myself included. Questions such as, “Was Underoath really done? Would they ever come back? And what are we going to do with all of our past frayed show posters and CD albums we blasted on repeat during our most angst-filled years?”

Those questions and more were finally addressed a few years later in 2015. The band cryptically announced ‘their rebirth was coming’ and soon after, they headlined their first reunion show since they disbanded, alongside A Day to Remember.

Fans came out in droves in unanimous support. Since then, the group has been unstoppable, releasing headbang-worthy singles and even earning a Grammy nomination for Best Metal Performance for their 2018 lead song, “On My Teeth.”

In 2021, they released their ninth album, Voyeurism, and the band hopped on tour, ready to bring their brutal, hard-hitting, in-your-face stage presence to crowds across the coast. This past Saturday evening, they got the best of that energy to Philadelphia’s Fillmore venue.

With the show starting right at 7:00 PM, fans from all parts of the city waited eagerly in line by the doors to be let in, tickets in hand, sporting their favorite Underoath gear. The most dedicated fans made a beeline for the rail once they were scanned in, while others mingled by the merch vendors or motioned to the bartender for their first night round. I watched the room, my eyes drinking in the vast venue, as I moved to take my entry point by the photo pit.

The chatter of fans and laughter boomed around me, and time seemed to slow as the house lights eventually dimmed down. Then, finally, my ears filled with the ecstatic cheers of the crowd as the first act took their place on stage.

Starting off the show was Long Island-based punk band, Stray From the Path. Frontman, Andrew Dijornio, led the group

photo credit: Angel Park

into their high-energy set, and eagerly used the breaks in between songs to encourage the crowd to jump to the heavy riffs and drum beats or to “open up the pit.” They played a mix of their old hardcore and newest tracks and it was a great way to get things started for the evening. 

Following Stray From The Path was Bad Omens, a metalcore group based out of Richmond, Virginia. Their set kicked off in a sea of red shadows and haze, with frontman, Noah Sebastian, grabbing the microphone, as the crowd grew louder with cheers. Following him were guitarist, Nicholas Ruffolo, and bassist, Vincent Riquier, strapped with their instruments and holding their hands high to greet their fans before the group unanimously shredded their way right into the opening chords of “Like a Villian.” The Bad Omens logo glowed in the background, casting an almost ominous shadow across the band. It fits their music’s dark, riff-heavy tones. Noah’s harrowing vocals backed with the band’s melodic instrumentals made for a grand opening set to kick off the night.

photo credit: Angel Park

Following Bad Omen‘s set was Canadian heavy metal band, Spiritbox, who came in with guitars and vocals blazing as they dove right into the opening chords of their single, “Holy Roller,” from their latest album, Eternal Blue.

The crowd gathered in and screamed along to vocalist Courtney LaPlante‘s commanding stage presence and heavy-hitting lyrics, setting the energy high for the evening. LaPlante‘s fierce growls and pitch-perfect, liquid-like notes combined flawlessly with riffs and beats from bandmates Mike Stringer (guitar), Bill Crook (Bass), and Zev Rose (drums). This group was a hard-hitting, heavy force to be reckoned with, and the crowd headbanged and moshed their way through every minute.

That frenetic environment gave way to even more excitement as the house lights cut off and the bone-chilling opening notes of Underoath‘s “Damn Excuses” reverberated across the venue.

“What’s up, Philly?” Frontman, Dallas Taylor, roared, as he grabbed the microphone, echoed by distorted riffs from Timothy McTague, Grant Brandell, and James Smith (guitarists). He holds his hand high, as the crowd cheers on, and, as he jumps down from his high position on the stage speaker box, the band seamlessly transitions to their single’s first verse.

photo credit: Angel Park

The volume of the crowd couldn’t have been higher. Almost everyone in the room mouthed along to the lyrics. The rail trembles as the entire front row go into headbanging mode, and a small circle pit has formed towards the back of the venue. It’s loud, bold, and almost violent, but this is the experience that metalcore fans live for, to just let go and lose yourself in the music.

Throughout their set, Underoath mixed their performance with new tracks from Vouyerism such as “Cycle (feat. Ghostmane)” and “Hallelujah,” with sprinkles of OG fan favorites such as “Reinventing Your Exit” thrown into the mix.

My inner metalcore fan was immediately reminded of the old days of listening to the band on my CD player. The nostalgia only elevated the listening experience I had with their new songs. Their sound has definitely matured, but they still managed to keep their gritty, complex hitting roots. 

Overall, Stray From The Path, Bad Omens, Spiritbox, and Underoath gave Philly’s hardcore and metal fans a show to remember for months to come. Even as the last song notes died down and security began to holler to usher everyone out by the end of it all, fans left with the widest smiles on all of their sweaty, moshed-out faces.

Connect with Underoath

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Connect with Spiritbox

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Connect with Bad Omens

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Connect with Stray From The Path

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photo credit: NIA Primus

Written by Killian O’Neil

Everyone has a story to tell in multiple ways; some through acting, others through writing, and my favorite, the stories that are told through music.

Philadelphia musician, NIA, is no different from spinning her craft of telling a story with her lyrics. NIA is a smooth R&B artist that reminds me of something that would be playing in the late nineties. She was raised in Queens, New York, with her Trinidadian parents, but now resides in the City of Brotherly love, Philadelphia. She began to actively write songs for her brother and quickly fell in love with all facets of music, and by her junior year of high school, she was producing and singing.

Shortly after she got accepted to Shippensburg University, that is where she broke free of the cocoon and stepped into her truth of music. Sooner than later, NIA evolved into a Badass Openly Queer woman who was shaking things out of the status quo. Eventually, she started to play locally and embrace collaborations with other artists,  while she was at school and even started her own label during her senior year of college called Chilled Room Records.

I was lucky enough to speak with her and ask her a few questions.

“When you started writing at 5, did you know that music was what you wanted to do?” I asked.

“Definitely,” NIA began. “I don’t remember a day where I didn’t know that music was what I wanted to do for the rest of my life. It has always been a part of me.” Another thing about NIA is that she is Queer, so I asked her if it was challenging for her to come out.

“Was it challenging for you to come out as a queer artist? Were you afraid that it would be more difficult as an artist?” I wondered.

“Not really, only because I was already out when I started to take music seriously. Interestingly enough though, it was very hard when I first began writing music. I wrote songs for my older brother because I didn’t think it would make sense for me to be singing songs about girls. This is something that I grew out of eventually, but in the beginning, it was a challenge. I was never afraid because life has always been harder for me. I was up for the challenge because I feel that it is important to represent people like me who often are not given a platform. When you’re born into a world that doesn’t expect you or really want you to become an influential human being, everything else is light-work in comparison; you build resilience.“

NIA has a bunch of influences such as Calypso, Sade, and Soca Music when it comes to her sound. She is pretty straightforward with the tunes that are in her earbuds.

“I know you have specific artists that are influences but are there any genres that have really impacted your sound?”

“Neo-Soul has been a huge influence for me since I was young. I always looked at Alternative R&B artists as the “children of neo-soul. I love Jazz too, it makes my soul feel calm and it motivates me to either move throughout the day or be still. Soca is another big influence for me. Other than ‘Games,’ there’s not really much of that influence within my past releases. Some of the newer tracks that I am preparing for release will have more of that though.”

After everything that has been learned thus far made me curious about what her routine is like. Every creative has an outlet and a way to express themselves and for NIA it’s songwriting to name just one. So I asked her what it looked like to a fly on the wall during her writing process.

“What is your writing process like? When I write, I’m not in a good place a lot of the time. This is why a lot of my music reflects on my emotional state or different situations that have led me to a dark place. I’ve been forcing myself to not fall into the ‘depression music’ trend too much though because my creativity is very fluid and that includes my writing. I remember how much I loved Luther Vandross as a kid but sometimes I would just feel stuck in a cycle with consistent love songs. At the end of the day though, that was what he wanted to represent and I appreciate his artistry so much more as an adult. Still yet, I don’t want anyone to feel that way with my music. A lot of it is also me just wanting to be in a place where I’m happy regardless of the circumstances that I’m faced with. I don’t want to be complacent in that mindset, and I don’t want my music to be either.”

Inclusive of going into a studio there is also another special craft of writing a new song, and what happens during those moments.

“What do you like to draw from when writing a song?”

“Honestly, anything I”m feeling. Either what I’m feeling or just whatever is heavy on my mind,” she says.

Unlike most artists, she has been breaking her back to lock in with music for years, even within her own family by writing for her brother. Shippensburg was next on the list of reasons how she was going about her career with music. It puzzled me because Ship isn’t known for their music program at all.

“What made you go to Shippensburg versus staying in Queens and focusing on music?”

“By the time I graduated high school, I had already been living in PA for years. I originally was going to go to the Art Institute of Philadelphia, but that ended up being too expensive and unreliable. I had to change course last minute and I really wanted to get out of my house so I just applied to Ship. My best friend Darlene was already enrolled there so it made it more comfortable to imagine being there. At the end of the day, the experience was needed and what I gained from the support of the English department is something that I will continue to be extremely grateful for.”

Being from Trinidad originally seeing if her storytelling magic had anything to do with her roots.

“Do you incorporate your roots from Trinidad into your music?” I asked.

“Sound-wise, not as much as I would like to. That’s really due to the fact that I am constantly working on upgrading my sound and technology. I don’t even wanna touch Soca until I know that I can do it the justice it deserves, though I do listen to it a lot and cannot wait until I have something ready for Carnival season.”

Being a musician is hard for many different reasons, especially in this day and age. Not only do you have to worry about your own sound getting out there, but you have to make sure you’re doing it in the right manner and platform. Being a musician can mean you have a shelf life, so I figured i would ask where she thought her career would be in 5 years.

“In five years, where would you like to see your career going?” I ask curiously.

“In five years, I would like to be so established that I can comfortably start a family. I would like to see the fruits of my labor working in the favor of my loved ones and my band.” NIA‘s response was what I think every artist should be these days as we live in an almost post-COVID world. It has affected every single artist and musician under the sun which has ultimately propelled them forward.

“Has the pandemic affected your creativity in more of a negative or positive way? Have you been able to write more and focus mainly on your music?”

“Definitely more positive than negative, which I feel fortunate to say. I moved to Philly in the midst of it and met some great people. I met my amazing business partner, Tito Orjih, my bandmates (Veronica Hudson, Joshua Solomon, Dre Hooper, Julius Philp, & Clayton Carothers), the folks over at Oscar’s Greenhouse (OJ Mountain & Kuya Daniel), and my current roommate, Lamont Speller, who is also my very good friend. I’ve met a lot of great people which helped me to build my network and, for the most part, feel a part of a community. I just feel fortunate to have gained more than I lost, I know not everyone can say that. I was able to focus more on my sound and brand and learn more about business. Looking back on it, the Universe was really guiding me.”

Although NIA now resides in Philadelphia, she is still working every day on new music inside of the studio. I wanted to find out when I’d be able to catch her for a show so I could witness this genius of songwriting for my own which lead me to my final question.

“Do you plan on touring at all or staying local? When can we expect to see you in the Philadelphia area?

“I definitely plan on touring, I am local right now, but as soon as the opportunity presents itself, we are hitting the road.”

If you get a chance to check out NIA, Do it. She is a perfect mixture of an R&B reboot that we all have been searching for since the early nineties.

Connect with NIA

Facebook | Instagram | YouTube | Spotify | Apple Music

For Mental Health Awareness Month, I’ve interviewed local songwriters and musical artists from around the country to get their perspective on how their mental health affects their songwriting/composing and/or vice-versa.

I asked them how the pandemic has affected their overall mental health and what they’ve been doing to cope or to seek treatment. They were also asked to share a song related to their struggles with mental health. As you could imagine, their answers were varied, and illustrate the many challenges of caring for one’s self mentally and emotionally.

I solicited a few of my Facebook friends and managed to showcase a fairly good cross-section of artists from the Great Northeast. This was to get the perspective of a songwriter taking care of their mental health during the pandemic.

We spoke to six artists including Margie Halloran, (composer/vocalist, Vermont College of Fine Arts), Miles Gannett (singer-songwriter, Baltimore), Annette Willimas McCann (singer-songwriter, Philadelphia), Andrew Mars (songwriter, Philadelphia), Vanessa Littrell (composer/vocalist, Vermont College of Fine Arts), Kat Hamilton (singer-songwriter, Los Angeles), and Valentina Raffaelli (songwriter/vocalist, Philadelphia).

Of course, ‘yours truly’ will provide some of my own insight as well.

The point here is to shed light on mental health care and treatment among the songwriting community, but my hope is to also reach others who may be struggling. I want you to know that it’s not uncommon. I want you to know the struggle can be shared, you don’t have to do this alone. I want you to know that there is hope and life doesn’t have to feel this way.

Most of all, I want you to hear the music that helped others to get through whatever challenging moment they needed help getting through and how they used music to guide and console them. I truly believe that music is our original native language and that it is universal.

I hope you find one word, one sentence, one sentiment, one note, one chord, one melody that rings true for you and that maybe one of these songs plucks a heartstring and stays with you long after you’ve finished reading and listening.

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Margie Halloran

“How To Be Sad” started out as a collection of sporadic thoughts in a note on my iPhone, and it began to form into a lyrical collection of the hopelessness I’ve felt as my world has stood still while the world spins madly on.

Throughout the past 400+ days, I have noticed increasingly visible signs of aging in myself, which have been a devastating reminder that time is still passing while I am unable to continue my daily life (for example, my primary career as a choral composer/singer has been completely dead in the water due to choral singing being such a high-risk activity).

The process of formatting these ideas into lyrics was a process that allowed some clarity into how I’ve been feeling and why. The process of writing and producing the EP, including the song, was one of the very few musical projects I’d had the opportunity to work on during this time, so it was cathartic in that way, as well.

This project was the first musical project I’d really worked on in almost six months, and one of only three throughout the entire pandemic thus far, so it was meaningful for me to be able to write about the experience.

Bandcamp

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Miles Gannett

“Screw Loose” is a song from my new album, Meridian, which just came out in April. It’s basically a funny song about a mental breakdown facilitating a kind of mystical/psychedelic experience. I’ve never felt like I was quite all put together, which can make it difficult to deal with society, but the premise of the song is that having a few loose screws can be a blessing; creating an opening in your consciousness for love, creativity, joy, and humor.

Even though the song deals with mental and emotional struggles in a playful way, I am definitely writing about my own experiences with “falling apart inside,” and it makes me feel better when I sing it or listen to it. I hope others who can relate to feeling “not-all-together” will laugh and feel seen when they hear it.

Bandcamp

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Annette Williams McCann

One blessing that has come from my journey has been learning to let things flow better rather than force the outcome of something, or even force how I ‘think I should feel’ about something.

“Light of Mine” came to me after a particularly needed meditation. It proved, yet again, how the creative process can be so healing. I can only pray that if it’s healing for me to write and sing it, it will be healing for others to hear it. I had a conversation years ago with an old bandmate. He argued how easy it was to write a sad song and that those sad songs were always written better than uplifting songs. I disagreed. That conversation has stayed in my head every time I pick up my guitar or mandolin. It’s okay to write an uplifting song. That’s why the album I wrote during the pandemic was nicknamed, The Love – EP, until it found its title.

Soundcloud

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Andrew Mars

After my psych ward experience, I recorded an album that I’d started writing as a teenager. [My album] DREAMER fell into place, at a time when I was learning self-love and healing as a result of opening up about my inner world. 

“Samsara” is a song that I wrote for my best friend and also one of the first songs I’d ever written. While I was recording the album 20 years after starting to write it, my best friend developed rapid onset schizophrenia that was like a wildfire in her mind. She endured several hospitalizations and a lot of judgment from her family. Sadly, two weeks after taking herself off her lithium, she took her own life.  This coincided with the release of my album in a way that I couldn’t have predicted or planned for. The best that I can understand about her experience through science is that she may have been having frontal lobe seizures which caused her ecstatic states.

I also feel that in her deep and earnest quest for enlightenment, she had achieved an ability to see through time in a way that splintered her physical mind. I still feel her often and I am still grieving. Losing her has amplified my quest to heal myself and be of service to the world by bringing my insights through my music.

Bandcamp

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Vanessa Littrell

“Shackles” is a song from my collaboration with my son. Our duo, Sugar Addikt, released an EP three months before he died. The hardest part of all this is that I wrote this song as a cathartic rant. It was my way of saying – ‘hey, you’re hurting yourself and me. Can’t you just get it together?’

Famous words were spoken by a person who just doesn’t understand depression. The irony here is that my cathartic rant is now a reminder that the struggle is real, the shackles are real. And sometimes hope isn’t enough. I love this collaboration we created. But, I also wish it could have helped him survive.

Spotify

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Kat Hamilton

My song, “Medicine Line,” comes to mind. I wrote it while I was in a relational recovery center in California and finally focusing solely on my mental health and personal trauma. When I get messages from people who have been through similar experiences, I feel a little lighter. Getting a message from someone who’s starting their sobriety journey is the most fulfilling to me. I always think about the lyric in the 2nd verse “almost normal, in our shatter. As I try to remember this is how a mosaic starts.” This lyric always reminds me that there is beauty in brokenness.

Bandcamp

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Valentina Raffaelli

In 2019, I wrote an entire album about getting out of an emotionally abusive relationship and finding oneself again after being lost for so many years (Bring On The Fire), but today I wanted to share a little bit about “Sad Song.” 

“Sad Song” was written and released during the pandemic. It is about breaking away from the repetitive unhealthy patterns that I tend to fall into, which were made more apparent by having to live as a recluse in a very small apartment (“How many times do I have to do it again…” and then later “Countless of hours spent practicing inside these four walls”). Social media contributes to a false sense of “everyone is doing so much better than me,” and creates a cycle of envy (“You make it look easy to live, to smile, to blend in”), making me feel like I’m the only one struggling to find confidence and happiness (“and I try my hardest, I keep feeling tight in my skin”).

I firmly believe it is okay to be sad and embrace our full range of emotions. So while everyone was telling me to cheer up, “I just wanted to sing a sad song.” As I write, I find that putting my problems on paper is always the first step to finding a solution and feeling better. I’m in a much better state of mind now, and I do think it’s because that song is out into the world. 

Spotify

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Rev. TJ McGlinchey

I wrote “Call Me” in 2011 when I was living in my first place in South Philly. It was released as part of the debut album from the local folk supergroup, A Fistful of Sugar, in 2013.

I had a roommate who was my best friend and I was playing music somewhere every night whether it was an open mic or a gig. I had the chorus but not verses. I’d play the chorus over and over and think about what it really meant. When I played the chorus at a rehearsal, a bandmate (Meaghan Kyle, No Good Sister, Philadelphia) asked who was calling me and why were they calling and what was I gonna say?

Eventually, I landed on my intention for the song. I was really thinking about my little brother and his struggles with mental health. I won’t share the exact nature of those struggles here, but I wrote the verses to tell him (and really anyone I know) that it’s okay to struggle and it’s normal and that you can reach out and tell me about anything and everything, at any time, no matter what. 

Bandcamp

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If you know someone in crisis, please call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline. They are available 24 hours a day in English and Spanish at 1-800-273-8255.

Philly-based Fried Monk (Lucas Kozinski) and beautiful-fortune (Jameel Farruk) are delivering the good vibes with their first single, “Planet B.”

After years of working together, the two artists are combining their projects, and delivering some popping indie electronic/hip-hop tracks for their forthcoming EP, Here As One, due out May 7th, 2021.

I have this Spotify playlist where I keep a list of my favorite tracks of 2021 thus far, and I had to add this song. It’s upbeat, catchy, and there are just good vibes. It’s ideal for that late spring/summertime weather.

Ironically, this track was only fully realized by the end of the first day that they had collaborated in the studio. After the two had laid out the structure of the EP’s opening track, “Patient Zero,” they immediately started on a beautiful, new electric guitar piece, and it quickly became their lead single.

“I’m overly curious about the sun. I’m borderline obsessed with it,” says Farruk. “As a solo artist, I can’t help myself from having referred to the sun over and over throughout my catalogue of songs.” Combining this fascination with the all too common experience of a bad breakup, Farruk dove into his personal history and called ‘Planet B,’ ‘a declaration of my acceptance of a life without her.'”

Connect with Fried Monk

Bandcamp | Instagram | Twitter

Connect with beautiful-fortune

Bandcamp | Instagram