Undeath Is the "Party Death Metal Band" You Never Heard Of

The five fun-loving freaks in Undeath don’t take themselves too seriously. Frontman Alexander Jones is quick to call himself and his bandmates “dorks” and “drunk metal guys,” who all love smoking weed and rocking Crocs off stage. It’s a refreshing attitude, especially in a genre that’s historically come off as all cross-armed and scowling. But Jones, Matt Browning (drums), Kyle Beam (guitar), Jared Welch (guitar) and Tommy Wall (bass) definitely don’t joke around when it comes to their music. The burgeoning band plays some of the most intense, brutal, old-school death metal this side of Cannibal Corpse, while embracing the “party death metal band” tag that has become Undeath's calling card since it rose from the underground the past few years.

“That’s the lane that we’re currently carving out for ourselves: We’re the party death metal band. I don’t know — that seems to be what we’re going for, so I’m just going to own it,” Jones says. “We’re just dorks. We’re, like, the most approachable guys in the world; we’ll talk to anybody. It’s all good. We’re just here to have a good time.”

Fans are also having a good time. Since the band’s untitled 2019 demo, its albums, Lesions of a Different Kind (2020) and this year’s It’s Time…To Rise From the Grave, have showcased Undeath’s uncompromising style, planting it at the forefront of a new wave of American death metal. A surprise live album release — Live…From the Grave — has also resonated with the metal masses.

The current Slave to the Grave tour oozes behind Undeath, as well as 200 Stab Wounds, Enforced and Phobophilic. The quartet of death dealers rolls into HQ on Sunday, December 11, for what's bound to be an unforgettable evening.

Uninitiated listeners would be forgiven if they mistook Undeath for an obscure, overlooked 1990s death metal band. The influences are certainly obvious — Jones and Undeath freakin’ love their genre forebears Cannibal Corpse, Morbid Angel, Autopsy and Bolt Thrower. But Undeath keeps it more fresh than formulaic, sprinkling in some grind here and there. Beam’s riffs are also just the right amount of groovy, while some are flat-out catchy as hell (“Enhancing the Dead” is a good example).

“I think that with It’s Time, we were just trying to streamline what we were already doing in a sense. … We just wanted to focus on the elements of [Lesions] that we thought were the most successful and most exciting, and hone those down to their essences and make those the central focuses,” Jones explains. “That’s kind of always been our process — just to make gradual improvements on the stuff that we’ve been doing, and try to distill everything in our music down to this one central, Undeath sound. It’s a process. I don’t think we got there yet. … The Undeath sound is on the cusp of crystallizing, so I’m very excited for what the future holds, in that sense.”

Jones and Undeath don’t run from the comparisons to other groups, however; Jones says it’s a trip to be touring alongside some of the band’s “heroes.”

“It’s really incredible, because I can’t really think of a lot of other genres of music where that is a reality. I can’t imagine being an up-and-coming folk artist and getting the opportunity to tour and hang out with Bob Dylan. That shit just doesn’t happen,” Jones says. “With metal, our heroes like Cannibal and Cryptopsy and Autopsy play shows all the time, and they’re also very approachable people. It’s a tremendous honor to play with bands like that. It means even more when they acknowledge you and when they take you out on tour. It just means the world.”

But for all the fun-loving talk and high-fives, if you go to see Undeath, expect an absolutely brutal death metal show.

“Well, there are a couple different things you can expect. If you’re standing up front, I would expect a lot of bodies to be falling on your head. If you’re standing in the center of the room, I would expect to keep your head on a swivel and watch out for flying knees and elbows,” Jones explains. “Otherwise, you can stand at the back and sides and just watch it all and just have a good time. We don’t discriminate. As long as you’re in the room and having a good time and enjoying yourself, that’s what means the most to all of us. Beyond all that, I would expect to hear some straight-ahead, no-bullshit death metal and find yourself having, perhaps, the most fun you've had at a death metal show.”

Undeath, 7:30 p.m. Sunday, December 11, HQ, 60 South Broadway. Tickets are $18.