This song is about a nuke going off in Pittsburgh and my partner and I accepting our fate. With all the recent world news headlines it had me thinking what we would do if sumn like that happened. V, the vocalist of Kicked in the Head by a Horse, is talking about “1111,” the opener of KITHBAH’s half of “The Great Yinzer Trendkill.”
Their split with fellow Pittsburgh band Underneath is out now on Crestfallen Records, available on CD and cassette. Underneath vocalist Joey Phillips puts it more directly: “The split as a whole is a product of Pittsburgh.”
For Joey, that runs through specific places. “Legion Keener,” one of Underneath’s tracks, takes its name from a park in Latrobe, the small town about an hour east of Pittsburgh where he grew up. “Every time I return home to visit, I’m reminded of the way the world was when I was a kid. Latrobe, like many small rust belt towns, struggles to maintain its identity with the rise of globalization and loss of industry.”
KITHBAH and Underneath hit the road together on July 9 in Pittsburgh, with In Jest from Philadelphia joining for the back half.
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KITHBAH, three years on from “Sporadic Dystrophy”
We covered KITHBAH back in 2023 around their “Sporadic Dystrophy” EP. The lineup is the same: V on vocals, Larry Rupp on guitar, Jake Laurine on drums, Nate Hoff on bass and vocals. They’ve moved practice to Jake’s house. “It makes everything feel just like we are hanging out when we practice,” V says. All four are in other bands and work full time jobs. The sound, though, has been shifting.
“Some people know us as the screamo band, some know us as the hardcore band, it’s nice exploring different sub generes while still keeping the general idea of chaos,” V says. “Not to say we won’t ever jump back into something we have tried before, we just want to grow our sound as we grow as people.”
On “Sporadic Dystrophy,” riffs mostly started with Larry and the band built outward from there. The split spreads the writing across all four members. Nate brought riffs. Jake started some songs from the drum kit. Jake has also been expanding the percussion side, rotating the kit and pulling in new sounds. “Jake is big into throwing different sounds our way, they are super into 70s and 80s r&b/soul, funk, fusion, especially Rush. The drums really lead us in this new split.” The other change is a turn toward grindier territory. “We’ve gone a little more in depth at our grimier sound with these songs and tried our hand at some ‘grindcore.’ While we are aware they aren’t TRUE grindcore songs, that was the initial idea we had when we talked about the direction of this split. That and we wanted to write something that felt different from what we have done before.”
V and Nate split lyric duty across the four KITHBAH tracks, so two voices come through. “Across our discography we have talked about our grandparents and our upbringings and how those things molded us into who we are today and that hasn’t really changed much in this new split,” Nate says. “Although we do talk more about the societal collapse we are experiencing around us on all fronts like on the song 1111 and packapunch.FAL, while the songs Silverfish and Johnnyhadagun focus more on the depression and stress we feel everyday and our coping mechanisms. We like to joke and have fun in our songs with samples and even what we write instrumentally at times but our lyrics always tend to lean into a more serious tone. When I am writing I tend to just write an explosive train of thought then take bits and pieces that really stand out to me later.”
“packapunch.FAL” was almost cut. “We originally were gonna cut packapunch.FAL but thankfully when we recorded with Joey he helped turn that song into one of our favorites,” V says. Nate wrote it. “This song was written about the state of things around us. We’ve been seeing so much violence and distress in the world and I’m kind of sick of it. Feeling fear and like you need to run from everything you’ve ever known, it shouldn’t be happening in 2026 anywhere on this planet. On a lighter note I used to play a lot of call of duty zombies so I couldn’t miss the opportunity to rip a name from that.”
“Silverfish” pulls from years of writing. “These lyrics are pulled from a lot of different times in my life,” Nate says. “I am a pretty angry person at the state of the world for a multitude of reasons and a lot of these lyrics reflect that. They also talk about my issues with religion to some extent and small details that I notice within my mind whether it be with depression or just an off thought.” The song ends on a turn: “The earth is saving its light for the days that I am not here / I hope that when I figure it out it wont be too late / ill catch it, or maybe it will hit me like a brick. Giving some type of hope for the future.”
“Johnnyhadagun” comes back to V. “This song is about johnny walking himself through committing suicide. I’ve dealt with various mental illness diagnoses and came to the conclusion that there’s alot of experiences I’ve yet to enjoy and that that’s not the answer. These lyrics were written satirically as the outcome of me working out personal struggles. If you’re ever struggling create something tangible while you break down what you’re feeling. Lean on your community. We have strength in numbers.”
How the split came together
The record was supposed to come out last year. “After dealing with nonstop personal issues within each of our lives it made us push it back till now,” V says. KITHBAH made the first move on the pairing. “We hit up Underneath first, we really wanted to do a spilt with a band that’s fast and heavy and we’ve always loved those dudes so it was just a good fit. These songs had so many different versions before reaching this final form.”
The friendship runs back further than the split. “I’m pretty sure we met Joey first and actually V featured on one of their old releases,” V says. “Underneath and us have been playing shows off and on for a bit and we’ve played shows with their guitarists old band too, we’ve all been around at shows and through time we became friends and it all came together.”
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Underneath: from Fall of Babylon to “Watchtower”
Underneath in their current form started jamming in January 2024 after guitarist Tad Logero and drummer Alex Ellsworth’s old band Fall of Babylon disbanded. The lineup: Joey Phillips on vocals, Alex Ellsworth on drums, Tad Logero and Owen Clark on guitars, Jaden Barley on bass. Older Underneath releases from before the current lineup are no longer in the discography. “Those were recorded by our vocalist, bassist, and one guitarist before we had our full lineup. After our new members joined (Tad and Alex), we felt that the music we made before was made for others, not for ourselves, and made the decision to remove it from our future discography.”]
In 2024 they released “It Exists Between Us,” the first record with the current lineup and the “new sound.” “In The Shadow of a Watchtower” followed in late 2025 and pulled in a feature from See You Next Tuesday, who then took Underneath out on a small tour in February 2026. U.K. chaotic grind band Horsebastard also featured them around the same time.
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Genre categories don’t sit well. “We’ve been called a lot of things, nothing ever seems apt: grindcore adjacent, deathcore, hardcore, metalcore, mathcore. None of these describe us fully, we kind of write whatever kind of riffs feel right in that moment. We don’t restrict ourselves to one subgenre of riffage.” For an influence map: “To list our biggest influences (since we just steal their riffs) Pig Destroyer, Maruta, Discordance Axis, The Red Chord, Full of Hell, etc.”
From Underneath’s side, the split came together “naturally.” “We had played a number of shows with them before, and we really like their sound. We had wanted to do one for a while and Kithbah seemed like the right choice. Their kind of screamo influence we thought would pair well with our more death/grind sound.”
On the record itself, that pairing plays out across two sides held together by Joey’s production. KITHBAH go for a screamo-tinted take on grindcore with Jake’s rotating drum kit driving the rhythm. Underneath put the Pig Destroyer / Discordance Axis lineage to work in whichever direction the riff demands moment to moment.
Pittsburgh in 2026
KITHBAH’s read on the city right now: scene’s bigger than ever. “Pittsburgh hardcore in 2026 seems to be bigger than it has ever been before with bands like Princess and Madman and our friends in Underneath crushing the grindcore side of things. But its not just the hardcore scene that has been doing well. We have some fantastic screamo bands like Kaiba and Morning Dew, on top of an ever growing wave of young bands pushing the territory on heavy music like moisty doing mincecore (if that’s term?)”
The flip side: rooms keep closing. “We’ve unfortunately, as it is in many DIY communities, lost some venues in recent months so it is harder to get an open room booked for any event, not just music. Although more recently, there has been a group getting together to throw outside generator shows in undisclosed locations, those have been the most fun I’ve had at shows in recent years. In true DIY fashion, keep your ears to the ground.” V also wants the Mr Roboto Project and Green Beacon Gallery in Greensburg on the record, “for being lovely people, venues and always holding it down for DIY. And Chris West for being our friend and a sick ass photographer, love you dude.”
The tour
The tour kicks off July 9 at Roboto in Pittsburgh and runs through July 19 in Philadelphia. Underneath ride the first half, In Jest from Philadelphia take the second. “Getting to do a release run with underneath is something we have been looking forward to for a while now,” V says. “We have played a few home shows with them in Pittsburgh and they always bring crazy energy to the stage. It will be fun playing with them in some areas that we personally have been to and had great lively crowds and areas that are new to us. The second half of the tour is with In Jest, another one of our good friends from Philadelphia who are tearing it up in the hardcore scene. All in all, this is going to be a fun run and we are very excited to play these new songs for everyone.”
Underneath keep the logistics short. “Waffle House. Every Morning. Every day. Also beer. Aside from that, might take the day we have off to do some sightseeing in D.C. We’re still carrying all our gear in two hatchbacks, and using Kithbah’s backline.”
KITHBAH’s last word on the record and tour: “Underneath has kicked ass for a long time and it’s great to finally work with them in this perspective. Joey is a fantastic producer who we definitely want to work with again. Tour is going to be fun. Horse OUT!”
Kicked in the Head by a Horse tour dates:
$ with underneath * with In Jest
7/9 Pittsburgh PA, @ Roboto $
7/11 Columbus, OH @ dirty dungaree’s $
7/12 Huntington, WV @ Breadroom $
7/13 Richmond, VA @ banditos $
7/15 Washington DC @ the rhizome house $
7/16 New Brunswick, NJ @ BLK BRN *
7/17 Manchester, NH @ the bungalow *
7/18 Providence, RI @ TBA *
7/19 Philadelphia, PA @ the palace *
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