This or the Apocalypse Get Political on ‘Subverse’ — Video Premiere

Although they hail from a place better known for its Amish community than its music scene, Lancaster, Pennsylvania's This or the Apocalypse took fate into their own hands and hit the DIY touring circuit.

The hard work paid off soon after. The band eventually signed with LifeForce Records and released their debut album, 2007's 'Monuments.' Then, Lamb of God's Chris Alder heard the record and fell in love with the band. He and Josh Wilbur (Avenged Sevenfold, Atreyu) ended up producing TOTA's next album, 2010's 'Haunt What's Left.'

Noisecreep has the world premiere of the video for 'Subverse,' one of the most gripping tracks from the album. We recently spoke with This or the Apocalypse vocalist Rick Armellino about the song's weighty lyrics.

Watch the video for 'Subverse'


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The song is sung from the perspective of a solider at war. What made you decide to take the song in that direction?

The song has a lot to do with the wars and me struggling with my own identity. I'm a 24-year-old American, and I've only seen only the worst out of my country. Failed wars with no justification, millions of confirmed kills, military contractors making massive profits, and the complete disconnection that many people my age have with the idea of being "American."

We're the children of the Internet and I think most of us could honestly care less about borders, nations, or the flag at that. We've been lied to endlessly, and I can get online to chat with a guy from Pakistan or Brazil as if they were my next door neighbor. So when someone talks about liberty I just close my ears and go back to my own thoughts.

It sounds like you've been personally affected by war.

There's a lot of war and death in my family's history. The story about the grandparents on my mother's and my father's side meeting for the first time sort of shaped a lot of what I feel about the foreign relationships between countries. My father's father flew in the squadron that bombed my mother's mother while she was in Austria. She was one of the lone survivors in a factory that was struck. Regardless, they still met as human beings that were happy to see each of their children becoming a married couple. It's just unbelievable to me. No matter how bad I want to just get rid of that dark history, it's in my blood. I guess the song is just sort of reconciling that.

Tell us about the video for 'Subverse.'

The video was shot by our boy Mike Kochansky. We just got in a room and did what we do and he got really animated with the camera. He was more winded than us, running around and trying to capture a really jarring perspective of the band. We wanted to splice in the footage that Wikileaks retrieved from Iraq and Afghanistan of unnecessary civilian deaths, but as a smaller independent band, chancing any of that legal garbage is just too big of a gamble.