Growth charts the broken trail of personal recovery across the harrowing dissonant metal of Under the Under.
Release date: March 27, 2026 | Wild Things Records | Bandcamp | Instagram
As a means of expression, it’s not exactly surprising that extreme metal tends to overwhelmingly dwell on negative emotions. The inherent forcefulness of the genre almost demands a degree of negativity, be it the political fury of grindcore, the rage behind much death metal, or the overwhelming depression that black metal can evoke. What tends to be trickier is finding the grounds for nuance, and for really digging deep into the knotted web of what we as humans suffer, and transcribing that into musical form. When that balance is hit, the results can be genuinely harrowing.
Formed in 2019, Melbourne’s Growth was established as an avenue for its members to deal with deep-rooted personal struggles. I didn’t catch on to The Smothering Arms of Mercy when it was released, but the band made no bones about the album being a response to the crushing external pressure of the worldwide lockdown and internal turmoil requiring psychiatric care. Fast forward to now, and Growth is back with their sophomore Under the Under, seeking, in the bands own words, ‘to illustrate recovery in all its brutality‘.
Out of respect, I won’t beat around the bush in saying that Under the Under is a remarkably heavy album in both approach and feeling. Sonically, the band would slot in well with the current wave of more dissonant, avant-garde death metal that has followed in the wake of bands like Gorguts and especially Ulcerate. Growth‘s riff work tends to be jagged and forceful, occasionally veering into off-kilter stutters that are dizzying and uncomfortable even after multiple listens, with even the grooviest sections underpinned by the tension of just where the music will go next. But vitally, Growth also understands how to weave genuinely affecting melodies and moments of genuine beauty into their work, setting them apart from their less subtle peers and elevating Under the Under into something genuinely special.
For all the fury with which “Remember Me As Fire” inaugurates the album, Under the Under manages a dynamic ebb and flow of sonic texture while never abandoning its core mood. The title track begins in hanging quiet dread, firing into punishing grooves and impassioned roars before the back half of the song introduces more measured pacing, goth-styled narrations, and some genuinely haunting layered singing in its fading minutes. Deeper into the album, a song like “Pain Is Never Far Away” underpins its violence with moments of radiant calm, while the more compact “Forward, Further, Spirit Killer” allows some of the albums most technical playing to trade off with a genuinely beautiful refrain.
As much as dissonant death metal tends to have a problem translating an overwhelming atmosphere into memorable moments, Growth has packed Under the Under with passages that just keep clinging to me. The uncomfortably hypnotic intro of “Slings That Shatter”. The Cult of Luna-esque slow burn start of “Death Cannot Hold Me”. The absolutely harrowing clean vocals throughout that evoke both latter-day Emperor and Primordial by turns. I’m not typically one to hang onto lyrics in metal albums, but it needs to be said that every word I picked up across Under the Under resonated deeply, and usually uncomfortably.
Despite a pretty clear, modern production style, Under the Under is awash in a despondent atmosphere that envelopes every note and lingers well after the feedback concluding the album cuts off. The performances across the board are outstanding, with the drumming deserving special mention in my own opinion. If any cautionary note can be levelled, it’s that this is definitely an album made for a full listen. Most of the songs are lengthy without a lot of repetition to hold onto, and even if their approach can be overwhelming at times, the narrative of the album demands commitment to truly work. Just like the personal reconstruction the album chronicles, this isn’t the sort of album where one should pick and choose songs. See it through the whole way, and the results will be far more rewarding.
At this point it feels like I’m just being repetitive stating that we’re living in trying times. The world’s actively on fire and at seemingly constant risk of total collapse. Most of us, myself included, deal with crippling anxieties and a sense of depression about this existence we’ve been handed. An album like Under the Under hits hard precisely because it dares to mirror how broken we feel sometimes, and doesn’t do us the disservice of saying ‘don’t worry, everything is going to be just fine’. Growth doesn’t offer us easy platitudes. They take the honest route of depicting just how crushing it is to get by and try to fix what’s broken, but recognize that it’s what we must do. Under the Under is a statement of what it means to be a badly broken work in progress, and I’ll be deeply curious what the results of that progress will be come album three.
