Audio Mixer: Chris Lord-Alge.

Photographer: Jeff Gros.

After overcoming some critical personal shakeups to produce 2004's excellent THEY'RE ONLY CHASING SAFETY, Florida's Underoath fulfilled the immense expectations set by that album--to transcend their audience's demands and still uphold their Christian metal roots--with 2006's DEFINE THE GREAT LINE. The Band undertakes this follow-up effort with such unbending ferocity that they leave most of their pop/screamo contemporaries in the dust. Vocalist Spencer Chamberlain removes himself from the sugary trappings of his brethren frontmen, gracing even his melodic passages with the angst and chaos that underline his more lungbusting turns. The band behind him has learned enough lessons from legitimate, vinyl-only, handmade-sleeve '90s screamo to make more learned listeners realize that these guys are as close to the real deal as anyone. Combining bracing melodies with unchecked aggression, Underoath may have made the defining album of the movement with DEFINE THE GREAT LINE.

Screamo/metalcore Warped Tour mainstays Underoath expand their sonic palettes on the blistering and occasionally majestic Define the Great Line, a mammoth production that exemplifies how far Christian metal has come since the days of Stryper and Bloodgood. On their third full-length release, the Florida-based rockers have found the delicate middle ground between throat-shredding grindcore and My Chemical Romance/From Autumn to Ashes-style emo-punk, utilizing the highly flexible voice of Spencer Chamberlain as a compass for both melody and cacophony. Define the Great Line is bookended by its best cuts, the rousing "In Regards to Myself" and the epic closer, "To Whom It May Concern." Both exemplify the group's newfound confidence in the studio and introduce a real progressive bent to both the production and the overall arrangements. While Underoath explore their faith with both reverence (the monastic "Salmarnir") and suspicion ("There Could Be Nothing After This"), something that sets them apart from the polarizing righteousness of many CCM acts, their crossover potential remains huge, as the prevailing themes of isolation, anger, introspection, and the quest for self-confidence are universal. ~ James Christopher Monger