Unteachers will end a 12-year gap between full-length albums with Under Bright Sadness, arriving Oct. 16 through Rottweiler Records.
The Lancaster, Pennsylvania, band began recording the project in 2021. Family responsibilities and ordinary life stretched the process across five years, but those experiences also shaped an album concerned with faith, grief, family and endurance.
Unteachers Return to an Unfinished Conversation
Stephen Mark Sarro formed Unteachers after the end of Tantrum of the Muse. The band released the Untantrum EP in 2007, followed by a split with Grace & Thieves in 2012 and its first full-length album, A Human Comedy, in 2014.
Sarro and longtime creative partner Wyse now make up the core of Unteachers. Sarro handles vocals, guitars and bass, while Wyse contributes drums and electronics.
They recorded Under Bright Sadness at Sarro’s home on an isolated farm in Lancaster County. Cliffy Huntington mastered the album at Steinhaus Mastering.
The record moves between progressive metal, punk, noise rock, sludge and quieter experimental passages. Rather than treating those sounds as separate styles, Unteachers uses them to move between pressure and release.
Opening track “Passage I: The Harrowing of Hell” begins with bells and dense noise before “Psalmnambulist” introduces more space around its bass and guitars. “Song of Seven Pillars” brings a heavier punk attack, while “Passage II: Womb Waker” offers a brief change in atmosphere.
“Last Rites for Lesser Magick” incorporates the words of theologian and philosopher Francis Schaeffer. Later, “The Orb Was Only Dust” turns toward melody before “Lamps of Vision” draws the album’s contrasting sounds together.
Two songs are publicly available before release. “Households of a Cosmic War” and “Last Rites for Lesser Magick” can be streamed through the album’s Bandcamp preorder page. The remaining tracks will unlock Oct. 16.
The release joins a busy fall schedule for Rottweiler Records. King Kulture recently covered Tundra’s forthcoming Eternal: Eclipse EP, another project that revisits and reshapes the band’s earlier work.
Under Bright Sadness Track List
- “Passage I: The Harrowing of Hell”
- “Psalmnambulist”
- “Households of a Cosmic War”
- “Song of Seven Pillars”
- “Passage II: Womb Waker”
- “Devils Blessed by the Rising Sun”
- “Last Rites for Lesser Magick”
- “Passage III: Grief Garden”
- “The Orb Was Only Dust”
- “Passage IV: Time Removed”
- “Lamps of Vision”
Stream the available songs and preorder Under Bright Sadness.