Amends is the third studio album by American rock band Grey Daze composed of Chester Bennington's vocals from the 1990s over newly recorded instrumentals. "What's in the Eye" was released as the first single from the project on January 17, 2020, and was co-produced by Chris Traynor, Kyle Hoffman and Jay Baumgardner. The second single, "Sickness", featuring Page Hamilton and produced by Pete Nappi, was released on February 6.[1] The release of the album was postponed from April 10 to June 26 due to the COVID-19 outbreak.[2][3]
Background
Tentatively titled New Sun Tomorrow,[4] the project was started in February 2017.[5] The album was announced in June by bassist Mace Bayers as a remaster of ...No Sun Today and they would be working on with Sylvia Massy.[6] The band had previously tried to release a remastered version of the album through Artemis Records in 2003; however, conflicts with lawyers within Linkin Park's label Warner Bros. Records prohibited the release.[7][8]
The original versions of Wake Me and ...No Sun Today were also available on iTunes up to 2005 before they were removed.[9][10] Linkin Park's discography arrived to the digital store in 2006.[11]
The news about the album came with the announcement of a Grey Daze reunion show at the Marquee Theatre in Tempe, AZ.[6] According to drummer Sean Dowdell, it was Bennington's idea to put the band together for a Club Tattoo 20th anniversary party[12] and they had started getting offers to play at festivals all over the world.[10]
Jason Barnes, who played guitar on Wake Me, was announced as part of the band's line-up for the show and was seen recording in the studio.[13][14] He was responsible for finding the original masters of the band's debut album. They had just started to strip the masters down and re-track the guitars[12] when the project was put on hold following Bennington's sudden death on July 20.[15]
Members of Grey Daze and Dead by Sunrise/Julien-K teamed up for a special acoustic performance on September 2 at the Saxe Theater in Las Vegas [16] in honor of Bennington. "The Down Syndrome" and two Dead by Sunrise songs were performed with Ryan Shuck on vocals.[17][18]
Writing and recording
Grey Daze was given permission by Bennington's widow, Talinda, to continue working on the project granted that they didn't change Chester's voice.[19] In late December, Massy confirmed the sessions would be resumed. According to her, the music would be modernized for the current market using master tapes recorded in the late nineties.[20] However, the band did not move forward with her[12] and Jason Barnes was absent from the project after 2017. The band reached out to former Warner Bros. Records executive Tom Whalley to release the album through his Loma Vista Recordings music label.[21]
Dowdell said, "We reverse engineered a lot of the music. We took all the music away, we kept the vocal track and the lyrics that was there – that was all Chester. We kept the integrity and the intention of all of the vocals, intact from its original inception. We actually rewrote all of the music to every single song from the ground up."[22] They worked on Bennington's vocals for two months before working on the music. Writing the instrumentals took about a year and half and recording took almost another year and a half.[23] Besides Bennington's original vocals from Wake Me and ...No Sun Today , previously unreleased alternate takes were also used on the songs.[24][25]
On June 9, 2019, Grey Daze confirmed they had wrapped up the project;[30] by August, they had mixed the album.[31]Draven Bennington was also asked to sing on the album but declined because it was difficult for him to listen to his father's voice at the time.[32]
Critical reception
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