The Unseen is an American street punk band that was formed in 1993 in Hingham, Massachusetts. One of the more prominent bands to revive street punk, The Unseen was originally called The Extinct.
History
The Unseen was formed in Hingham in 1993. They then moved to Boston. Along with other street punk bands, they set out to revive the English street punk sound of the 1980s. The quintet released a best-of compilation for the European market in June 2000 titled , which contained two previously unreleased tracks. The group's solid early line-up consisted of Tripp on bass guitar and vocals, Scott on lead guitar, Civitarese on drums and vocals and Paul Russo on second guitar and vocals as well as drums and bass guitar during live shows when the band switched instruments for certain songs. Most shows began with Russo and Tripp singing lead, and ended with Russo playing drums and Civitarese singing lead. Russo went on to play in The Pinkerton Thugs as well as a solo project called The Strings. He is currently playing in a punk band called Broken Stereo. Mark Unseen, who played drums on the band's first few albums, became the lead singer after Russo's departure. He also formed and runs ADD Records. He briefly joined the Boston punk group A Global Threat as a second singer, and recorded the full-length albums What The Fuck Will Change? and Until We Die before deciding to concentrate on his work with The Unseen. However shortly after his departure he and Unseen guitarist Scott with Mike Graves and Peter Curtis formed Self Destruct. They released only one 7-inch EP, entitled Violent Affair, and played fewer than ten shows but the musical style and lyrical content displayed on their one record had great influence on all Unseen music to follow, helping to shape their future sound with Civitarese as lead singer. In 2010, Civitarese started a punk rock band called Ashers and released a 7" vinyl and full-length album Kill Your Master. More recently, Civitarese joined with various member of Boston's hardcore scene to form the hardcore/metal band Tenebrae. There has been some controversy concerning the band, including allegations that in recent years they have "sold out" and that the band should have stopped after losing Russo and therefore their strong political message. Most widely criticised is that The Unseen have produced music videos to show on commercial music video channels such as GMTV2, a practice looked-down upon in the underground street punk scene which also goes against the political message of the first few albums. Darkbuster, a band from The Unseen's area of origin, even released a joke song called "I Hate The Unseen". Members of Darkbuster and The Unseen are friends. They have toured Europe, North America, Australia, Japan and Mexico with other punk bands such as The Bouncing Souls and Rancid and decidedly more hardcore bands like Hatebreed and Sick of It All. Since the departure of Russo, the band has used many replacements on tour such as members of The Virus, Strike Anywhere and F-Minus. However, recently, on their MySpace page, The Unseen have included a fifth band member, Jonny Thayer, formerly a guitarist with A Global Threat, who was in the band at the same time as Civitarese. In 2006, the publication of Underwood's book, So This Is Readin'?, detailed the life and hardships of being in an underground band with dry comedy. It started as a lengthy band history on the band's website, but after a few amusing "chapters" he was contacted by a publishing company to release it in book form. In May 2006, The Unseen announced on their official website that they would begin writing their sixth full-length studio album during summer that year. The album, Internal Salvation, was released on July 10, 2007. The first song released from that album is titled "Right Before Your Eyes" and was followed up by the "Break Away", for which the band made a music video. In support of the album, the band joined the thirteenth Warped Tour in 2007 and launched a US–Canada tour in March 2008. The Unseen remained inactive, until May 25, 2013, when they played at Punk Rock Bowling at the Fremont Country Club in Las Vegas. They have continued performing live sporadically since.
