''Atlas'' is the fourth studio album by Australian

metalcore Metalcore (also known as metallic hardcore) is a fusion music genre that combines elements of extreme metal and hardcore punk. As with other styles blending metal and hardcore, such as crust punk and grindcore, metalcore is noted for its use of ...

band

Parkway Drive Parkway Drive is an Australian metalcore band from Byron Bay, New South Wales, formed in 2003. As of 2018, Parkway Drive have released six studio albums, one EP, two DVDs, a split album and one book, titled ''Ten Years of Parkway Drive''. The ...

. It was recorded in Los Angeles, California, and released on 26 October 2012 through

Resist A resist, used in many areas of manufacturing and art, is something that is added to parts of an object to create a pattern by protecting these parts from being affected by a subsequent stage in the process. Often the resist is then removed. For ...

and

Epitaph Records Epitaph Records is an American independent record label owned by Bad Religion guitarist Brett Gurewitz. Throughout the 1980s and 1990s, most acts signed to the label were punk and pop punk acts, while there are many post-hardcore and emo bands ...

. The album was produced by

Matt Hyde Matt Hyde (born June 19, 1964) is an American producer, engineer, mixer and musician. From 1982 to 1985 he attended Berklee College of Music in Boston. While still at Berklee in 1984, he obtained an internship at Pyramid Recording Studio in Bost ...

. At the

J Awards of 2012 The J Award of 2012 is the eighth annual J Awards, established by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation's youth-focused radio station Triple J. The announcement comes at the culmination of Ausmusic Month (November). For the fifth year, three aw ...

, the album was nominated for Australian Album of the Year.

Release and promotion

On 9 September 2012, Parkway Drive released the album's first single, "Dark Days" along with a music video. On 17 September, Parkway Drive released a 10-second teaser of "Old Ghost / New Regrets" in an interview with Winston McCall on the ABC radio program, ''The Doctor''. On 16 October, "Old Ghost / New Regrets" was released by Parkway Drive through the Epitaph Records YouTube channel. On 23 October, the full album became available to stream on the Epitaph Records YouTube channel. The album was released on 26 October 2012 through

. The band first started touring in support of the album in Europe between 13 November 2012 and 1 December 2012 with opening bands

Emmure Emmure () is an American metalcore band formed in 2003. Originally based in New Fairfield, Connecticut, before moving to Queens, New York, the group has released eight albums, with their first public release being a 2006 EP entitled '' The Comp ...

The Word Alive The Word Alive is an American metalcore band formed in Phoenix, Arizona, in 2008. The band was signed to Fearless Records since their formation. In 2022, they changed their label and signed to Thriller Records. The band currently consists of ...

and Structures. On 13 December, they embarked on their second album release tour, to New Zealand and Australia. The band performed as part of Warped Tour Australia in November and December 2013.

Critical reception

''Atlas'' received generally positive reviews from critics. At

Metacritic Metacritic is a website that review aggregator, aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted arithmetic mean, weighted average). M ...

, which assigns a normalised rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, the album has an average score of 73 out of 100 based on 6 reviews, indicating "generally favorable reviews". Fred Thomas from

AllMusic AllMusic (previously known as All Music Guide and AMG) is an American online music database. It catalogs more than three million album entries and 30 million tracks, as well as information on musicians and bands. Initiated in 1991, the databas ...

commented on the album's use of instruments not generally used in

, saying, "The album's depth and openness to straying away from typical devices of the genre make ''Atlas'' one of the more engaging and thought-provoking metalcore releases amid a sea of the interchangeable riffs and howls of other bands."

Commercial performance

''Atlas'' debuted at No. 3 on the Australian

ARIA In music, an aria (Italian: ; plural: ''arie'' , or ''arias'' in common usage, diminutive form arietta , plural ariette, or in English simply air) is a self-contained piece for one voice, with or without instrumental or orchestral accompanime ...

albums chart and achieved an ARIA Gold certification for 35,000 shipments in January 2013. In the US, it charted at No. 32 on the ''Billboard'' 200, and has sold 63,000 copies in the US as of September 2015. At the end of the year the album was featured on a few end of year lists. It reached 25 of 101 in ''

Kerrang! ''Kerrang!'' is a British weekly magazine devoted to rock, punk and heavy metal music, currently published by Wasted Talent (the same company that owns electronic music publication ''Mixmag''). It was first published on 6 June 1981 as a one- ...

''.

Track listing

Personnel

; Parkway Drive * Winston McCall –

lead vocals The lead vocalist in popular music is typically the member of a group or band whose voice is the most prominent melody in a performance where multiple voices may be heard. The lead singer sets their voice against the accompaniment parts of t ...

* Jeff Ling –

lead guitar Lead guitar (also known as solo guitar) is a musical part for a guitar in which the guitarist plays melody lines, instrumental fill passages, guitar solos, and occasionally, some riffs and chords within a song structure. The lead is the featur ...

* Luke "Pig" Kilpatrick –

rhythm guitar In music performances, rhythm guitar is a technique and role that performs a combination of two functions: to provide all or part of the rhythmic pulse in conjunction with other instruments from the rhythm section (e.g., drum kit, bass guitar ...

* Jia "Pie" O'Connor – bass * Ben "Gaz" Gordon –

drums A drum kit (also called a drum set, trap set, or simply drums) is a collection of drums, cymbals, and other Percussion instrument, auxiliary percussion instruments set up to be played by one person. The player (drummer) typically holds a pair o ...

; Additional musicians * Bruce Mann –

trumpet The trumpet is a brass instrument commonly used in classical and jazz ensembles. The trumpet group ranges from the piccolo trumpet—with the highest register in the brass family—to the bass trumpet, pitched one octave below the standard ...

on "Blue and the Grey" * Daniel "The Duke" Alexander –

piano The piano is a stringed keyboard instrument in which the strings are struck by wooden hammers that are coated with a softer material (modern hammers are covered with dense wool felt; some early pianos used leather). It is played using a keyboa ...

on "Atlas" * Mariah Green –

cello The cello ( ; plural ''celli'' or ''cellos'') or violoncello ( ; ) is a Bow (music), bowed (sometimes pizzicato, plucked and occasionally col legno, hit) string instrument of the violin family. Its four strings are usually intonation (music), t ...

on "Sparks" and "Atlas" * Alison Belle –

violin The violin, sometimes known as a ''fiddle'', is a wooden chordophone (string instrument) in the violin family. Most violins have a hollow wooden body. It is the smallest and thus highest-pitched instrument (soprano) in the family in regular ...

on "Sparks" and "Atlas" * DJ Snagtoof –

turntables A phonograph, in its later forms also called a gramophone (as a trademark since 1887, as a generic name in the UK since 1910) or since the 1940s called a record player, or more recently a turntable, is a device for the mechanical and analogu ...

on "The Slow Surrender" * Tim McAfee Lewis, Skip Jennings, Arnae Baston and Reirani Taurima –

vocals Singing is the act of creating musical sounds with the voice. A person who sings is called a singer, artist or vocalist (in jazz and/or popular music). Singers perform music (arias, recitatives, songs, etc.) that can be sung with or without ...

on "Sparks", "The River", "Atlas" and "Blue and the Grey" ; Additional personnel *

–

production Production may refer to: Economics and business * Production (economics) * Production, the act of manufacturing goods * Production, in the outline of industrial organization, the act of making products (goods and services) * Production as a stati ...

engineering Engineering is the use of scientific method, scientific principles to design and build machines, structures, and other items, including bridges, tunnels, roads, vehicles, and buildings. The discipline of engineering encompasses a broad rang ...

, mixing, mastering * Chris Rakestraw – engineering * Sahir Hanif – drum technician * Richard Baron – string

arrangement In music, an arrangement is a musical adaptation of an existing composition. Differences from the original composition may include reharmonization, melodic paraphrasing, orchestration, or formal development. Arranging differs from orches ...

s * Dugan Cruz – assistant production, vocal

s *

NASA The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA ) is an independent agency of the US federal government responsible for the civil space program, aeronautics research, and space research. NASA was established in 1958, succeeding t ...

–

album cover An album cover (also referred to as album art) is the front packaging art of a commercially released studio album or other audio recordings. The term can refer to either the printed paperboard covers typically used to package sets of and 78-r ...

* Alex Ormerod and Bec Kilpatrick – photography, booklet photos * Callum Preston –

art direction Art director is the title for a variety of similar job functions in theater, advertising, marketing, publishing, fashion, film and television, the Internet, and video games. It is the charge of a sole art director to supervise and unify the visi ...

, layout

Charts

Weekly charts

Year-end charts

Certifications

References

{{Authority control 2012 albums Parkway Drive albums Epitaph Records albums Albums produced by Matt Hyde Resist Records albums