This Moment

Delivering crushing metalcore that still offers a positive lyrical message despite the sledgehammer impact of the music, This Moment hail from Ventura, CA, where the band was formed in 2001 by guitarist Matt Lafferty not long after he graduated from high school. Lafferty, an avowed Christian, has been the sole constant through the group's history, writing the lion's share of the group's songs and self-releasing the group's first two EP's, 2001's The Record of Life and 2002's This Moment. In 2004, This Moment found a champion in producer Paul Miner, who had worked with musically likeminded acts such as Thrice, Death by Stereo, and Atreyu. Impressed with the group's power, Miner took the then-current lineup of This Moment — Lafferty, singer Kyle Laughlin, bassist Sean Dougherty, and drummer Nate Freedman — into the studio and helped them craft their full-length debut, Finding a Voice in the Dark.

The results impressed the independent Uprising Records label, which signed This Moment and released the album in the summer of 2005. Extensive touring followed, as an opening act for bigger names such as My Chemical Romance and Killradio as well as playing smaller venues as a headliner. When the band returned to the studio with Miner in the spring of 2006 to record its second long-player, Lafferty and Freedman were the only holdovers from Finding a Voice in the Dark. Star < Parallel (a play on the phrase "star-crossed") found vocalist Kevin Van Ouwerkerk and bassist Steven Hur making their recorded debuts with the group. Star < Parallel was released in the early spring of 2007, and by summer a new lineup for This Moment had been announced on the band's MySpace page, with Lafferty joined by Trae Malone on vocals, Alex Marrodan on bass, and Jason Fry on drums.