Grammy-nominated and Gold-selling hard rock heavyweights Killswitch Engage have announced their eighth album Atonement, out August 16 on Sony Music Entertainment (World ex N. America) / Metal Blade Records (North America).
The band have also shared the first song, Unleashed.
“Unleashed is about inner passion and rage coming up to the surface,” said singer Jesse Leach. “We all have that wild within that often stays dormant until a tragic event triggers and awakens it. This song is about that awakening within. I feel we were able to capture something raw and intense on this song and I’m stoked for everyone to hear it! The new album Atonement is a reflection of perseverance and passion through the trials and suffering of our existence.”
Indeed, Atonement is the culmination of a trying and turbulent two-year period. KsE started kicking around ideas for the album as early as 2017. The band recorded the bulk of the material separately on both coasts. However, in the middle of the process, a polyp developed scar tissue in Leach’s throat, forcing him to undergo surgery. The intense three-month recovery ended with speech therapy, vocal therapy, and scream therapy. The band ultimately emerged with an album that is further evidence of their undeniable legacy as one of the most enduring metal bands of the last two decades and beyond.
The elaborate illustration on the Atonement album cover was created by none other than talented UK based artist Richey Beckett (Metallica, Mastodon) with the band’s own Mike D’Antonio handling art direction and layout duties.
Killswitch Engage first shook the structure of heavy music upon climbing out of snowy industrialized Western Massachusetts in 1999. A musical outlier, the band pioneered a union of thrashed-out European guitar pyrotechnics, East Coast hardcore spirit, on-stage hijinks, and enlightened lyricism that set the pace for what the turn-of-the-century deemed heavy. 2002’s Alive Or Just Breathing became avowed as a definitive album, being named among “The Top 100 Greatest Metal Albums of the Decade” by Decibel and celebrated by everyone from Metal Hammer to Revolver.
Not only did they bust open the floodgates for dozens to follow, but they also garnered two GRAMMY®Award nominations in the category of “Best Metal Performance” in 2005 and 2014, respectively, and gold certifications for The End of Heartache [2004] and As Daylight Days [2006]. The group landed three consecutive Top 10 debuts on the Billboard Top 200 with Killswitch Engage [2009], Disarm The Descent [2013], and their career high best bow at #6 with Incarnate [2016]. The latter two releases would also both capture #1 on the Top Rock Albums and Top Hard Rock Albums charts. Their total streams have exceeded half-a-billion to date. Along the way, the band has shared stages with some of the biggest acts in the world and have sold out countless headline gigs in six continents across the globe.
2019 represents another turning point. The quintet—Adam Dutkiewicz [lead guitar], Joel Stroetzel [rhythm guitar], Mike D’Antonio [bass], Justin Foley [drums], and Jesse Leach [vocals]—sharpen every side of this signature sound on their eighth full-length and first for Metal Blade, Atonement. The vision they shared two decades ago crystallizes like never before as evidenced by the first single “Unleashed.”
ATONEMENT TRACK LISTING
01. Unleashed
02. The Signal Fire [Featuring Howard Jones]
03. Us Against the World
04. The Crownless King [Featuring Chuck Billy]
05. I Am Broken Too
06. As Sure As the Sun Will Rise
07. Know Your Enemy
08. Take Control
09. Ravenous
10. I Can’t Be the Only One
11. Bite the Hand That Feeds
