Formed in Chicago in 2006 by Eddie Harris (vocals), Jeremy Carroll (guitars), Kevin Hare (bass), and Derek Hildreth (drums), the band went through a nonstop revolving door of members for the next year before settling on the new lineup, with Carroll and Hare staying and Adam Warren, Andrew Mikhail, and Michael Southcomb taking the vocal, rhythm guitar, and drum slots. Hare and Southcomb were both gone by 2008, however, and in their place came Jason Jones and Danny Terchin, creating the Depths lineup. The band also inked a deal with Earache Records around this time, and Depths, their debut on the label, was released in April of 2009 and solidified their place as a rising star in the crowded deathcore genre. Shortly before the album was released, Jeremy Carroll was fired from the band due to serious personality conflicts with the other members; rather draft a new member, they continued on as a four-piece for a short while before Tristan McCann joined. McCann was gone by the end of the year, however, and around the beginning of 2010, Andrew Mikhail also left. Devin Shidaker and Nick Conser jumped in to take their place, and they ran back into the studio to crank out a followup. Contagion was released that November, and after another year plus change of breakneck touring, rumors started to emerge in 2012 that they were breaking up. The truth was eventually revealed: they weren't breaking up, per se, but they were going on indefinite hiatus so Adam Warren could care for his newborn child.
This was short-lived, however, as they were right back on the road by the summer, and by the beginning of 2013, they had released a lyric video for a new song. Incisions itself wasn't out until that October, however, and by the end of the year, Shidaker and Terchin were both out. Michael Kasper quickly replaced Shidaker, while Chason Westmoreland replaced Terchin around either the end of 2013 or the beginning of 2014. More touring followed, and over the course of 2014, Conser and Jones both left, with Scott Smith and Chris Wagner quickly jumping in to take their place. After another year of touring, they returned to the studio, though Westmoreland jumped ship to Hate Eternal around this time. Andrew Holzbaur (ex-The Devastated) joined around this time, and Ascendants was released in March of 2015. Around the conclusion of that touring cycle, Michael Kasper left, leaving them a four-piece, and after running into the studio again around the end of the year, they announced a new deal with Sumerian Records around the beginning of 2017, and Revelation, their fifth full-length, was announced that March. After a headlining tour in the spring of 2017, Holzbaur left, and Matt Kohanowski filled in live on that year's Summer Slaughter before eventually being made full-time by the end of the year.
Discography:
- Demo 2006
- Demo 2007
- Demo 2008
- Depths (2009)
- Contagion (2010)
- Incisions (2013)
- Ascendants (2015)
- Revelation (2017)
THIS PLAGUE WAS WEAPONIZED! EXTERMINATION IS THE ONLY TROPE!:
- Ascended Extra: Matt Kohanowski was originally just a live fill-in before being made full-time around the end of the year.
- Audience Participation Song: "District of Misery": "WE! ARE THE ANTIDOTE! AND ALSO! THE DISEASE!"
- "A Mandatory Sacrifice": "WITH A SIMPLE PRAYER!"
- Author Appeal: Adam really likes Gaia's Lament and The End of the World as We Know It.
- Black and Nerdy: Adam Warren is a huge Nintendo fan and has a dedicated Twitch channel.
- Concept Album: Ascendants kicked off a conceptual story that is still ongoing as of Revelation, while Contagion was a standalone concept album about an engineered zombie plague being used as an excuse to impose martial law by a tyrannical government.
- Deathcore: Started off as a more brutal death-influenced take on this circa Depths before eventually moving in a djentier direction. They also foreshadowed a lot of trends in 2010s deathcore, as the mechanical chugging, Behemoth-esque atmospheric lead themes, and tunnel throat-centric vocal approach that Depths and Contagion featured in abundance all wound up being major features of a lot of the Bandcamp deathcore bands, while the overt brutal death and slam elements wound up influencing a lot of later slam/deathcore hybrid acts.
- Early-Installment Weirdness: Depths and Contagion were far more riff-oriented, and, while reasonably heavy on the breakdowns, were not as focused on them as their later material, in addition to having prominent brutal death and slam elements that they later sidelined.
- Gravity Master: "Fractured Frames, Scattered Flesh", though it is more likely a gravity bomb/mass shadow generator.
- Hidden Depths: Trav and Adam (an acoustic singer-songwriter duo that serves as Adam's main side project) proves that Adam is also a gifted and nuanced clean singer. He would later go on to further explore his clean vocals with the R&B project Unwrthy.
- Metal Band Mascot: The dripping crescent moon (which still doesn't have a name, but it is nonetheless widely recognizable as the "Oceano moon").
- Metal Scream: Along with Phil Bozeman and Ricky Hoover (ex-Suffokate), Adam Warren was one of the most prominent users of a variant of Type 2 that is colloquially known as "tunnel throat", though he has gradually shifted his technique to something closer to brutal death gutturals. He's also capable of Type 3 highs, though he is less famous for those.
- New Sound Album: Several.
- Incisions was a less breakdown-centric and more atmospheric album.
- Ascendants introduced prominent djent and industrial elements.
- Revelation further increased the djent and industrial elements and stripped down the complexity, and often borders on downtempo.
- Revolving Door Band: Contagion and Incisions were the only albums to have the same lineup in their entire career, and even then, Devin Shidaker and Danny Terchin were gone by the time Incisions actually came out.
- Scary Black Man: A very major part of Adam Warren's stage presence, as he is a big, intimidating man. Offstage, less so.
- Special Guest: Alex Erian, Steve Marois, Nick Arthur (Molotov Solution), and Tim Goergen (ex-Within the Ruins) have all had guest vocal spots on album.
- Start My Own: Andrew Mikhail started Serpents shortly after he left the band. Subverted with Demolisher, as they were around before Adam ever joined; while Trav and Adam is technically a legitimate example for Adam, they are an acoustic duo that was established with no intention of greater success. The same goes for Unwrthy, another side project of Adam's, and Super Slam Bros, an online Nintendo-themed brutal deathcore project with Brian Moore (The Browning).
- Token Minority: Along with Derrick Green, Terrance Hobbs, Mike Smith, Mendel bij de Leij, Malcolm Pugh, Howard Jones, and Caller of the Storms (Blasphemy), Adam Warren and Chason Westmoreland are among the most famous black people in extreme metal. Adam in particular is one of the very few African-American vocalists in the genre.
- Vocal Evolution: Adam Warren originally used tunnel throat exclusively, which may have led to his notoriously inconsistent and often poor live performances early in their career. Around Ascendants, he began using his throat a lot less and started doing more standard gutturals.
- Zombie Apocalypse: "Viral Re-Animation".
