''Ø (Disambiguation)'' is the seventh studio album by American

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

Underoath Underoath (stylized as Underøath or UnderOath) is an American rock band from Tampa, Florida. It was founded by lead vocalist Dallas Taylor and guitarist Luke Morton on November 30, 1997, in Ocala, Florida; subsequently, its additional member ...

. Released on November 9, 2010, through

Tooth & Nail Records Tooth & Nail Records is a Christian rock record label founded by Brandon Ebel in California in November 1993. The label later moved to Seattle, Washington where it is situated today. It is home to many well-known musical acts, including Underoat ...

, the album was the band's only without founding member

Aaron Gillespie Aaron Roderick Gillespie (born July 18, 1983) is an American musician, best known for being the original and current drummer and clean vocalist for the metalcore band Underoath and the lead singer and rhythm guitarist for the alternative rock ...

, and is the first and only record by the band with

Daniel Davison Daniel Travis Davison (born January 28th, 1983) is an American musician, songwriter, artist, and filmmaker. He is also a co-founder and former drummer of the band Norma Jean and a former drummer of Underoath and Every Time I Die. Early life ...

, formerly of Norma Jean. It was also their final album before a two-year breakup from 2013 to 2015. They would not release another studio album until 2018's '' Erase Me''. ''Ø (Disambiguation)'' was met with acclaim and was recorded at Glow in the Dark Studios in

Atlanta, Georgia Atlanta ( ) is the capital and most populous city of the U.S. state of Georgia. It is the seat of Fulton County, the most populous county in Georgia, but its territory falls in both Fulton and DeKalb counties. With a population of 498,715 ...

, the same studio where the band's previous album, ''

Lost in the Sound of Separation ''Lost in the Sound of Separation'' is the sixth album by American rock band Underoath. It was released on September 2, 2008, through Solid State and Tooth & Nail Records. Following the release of their fifth studio album ''Define the Great Line' ...

'' was recorded.

Recording and production

During a late 2009 interview, guitarist Timothy McTague stated that the band had "just started writing songs that may be included on the next record", and that they are hoping to enter the studio late summer or early fall 2010. On April 5, 2010, the band announced the departure of their final founding member, drummer and vocalist, Aaron Gillespie. On May 10, 2010, through their official Myspace blog, Underoath announced that they will be entering the studio on May 24 to record their follow up to ''

''. Following the departure of Gillespie, Underoath recruited ex–Norma Jean drummer

for drumming duties. Sessions were held at Glow in the Dark Studios in

with producers

Matt Goldman Matt Goldman (born December 30, 1969) is an American record producer, audio engineer, mixer, and songwriter based in Atlanta, Georgia. Biography Born in Spartanburg, South Carolina, United States, Goldman is a drummer by trade. Goldman c ...

and Jeremy Griffith. The drum tracks were edited by Justin Chapman, before being mixed by Ben Grosse at The Mix Room in Burbank, California.

Ted Jensen Ted Jensen (born September 19, 1954) is an American mastering engineer, known for having mastered many recordings, including the Eagles' ''Hotel California'', Green Day's '' American Idiot'' and Norah Jones' ''Come Away with Me''. Biography Ted ...

then mastered the recordings at Sterling Sound.

Release and promotion

A postcard containing a piece of the artwork was sent to each person who pre-ordered the album. The buyer was to take a picture of that postcard and upload it to Underoath's official website. Once every piece had been uploaded, the band would release the artwork. They did so at 1 pm EST, September 21, 2010. Underoath hosted a game on their Twitter and Facebook profiles. It consisted of scrambled titles for tracks featured on the album. The first person who unscrambled the words won an Underoath T-shirt. The band also released one of their new songs, "Illuminator", by layers, giving away one instrument's part at a time. The song was fully uploaded on October 1, 2010. The second song Underoath released was the single "In Division" on November 2. The band also developed a contest for the track "Catch Myself Catching Myself". The song was uploaded to

YouTube YouTube is a global online video platform, online video sharing and social media, social media platform headquartered in San Bruno, California. It was launched on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim. It is owned by ...

on October 28; however, all the vocals were taken out. The lyrics were put up in the video, and viewers were told to put their own vocals over the song and upload it to YouTube. The submission chosen to be best would receive an Underoath prize pack containing a shirt, poster, stickers and more, and the guitar used for the video of "In Division". Two runners-up would receive the prize pack only. A music video for "In Division" was released on November 1, 2010. A music video for "Paper Lung" was released on April 25, 2011.

Reception

''Ø (Disambiguation)'' was met with universal acclaim from

music critics Music journalism (or music criticism) is media criticism and reporting about music topics, including popular music, classical music, and traditional music. Journalists began writing about music in the eighteenth century, providing commentary on w ...

. 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 normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream publications, the album received an

average In ordinary language, an average is a single number taken as representative of a list of numbers, usually the sum of the numbers divided by how many numbers are in the list (the arithmetic mean). For example, the average of the numbers 2, 3, 4, 7, ...

score of 83, based on eight reviews. In its first week, ''Ø (Disambiguation)'' sold 24,000 and debuted at No. 23 on the Billboard 200 charts.

Track listing

All music written by

. All lyrics by

Spencer Chamberlain Spencer Chamberlain (born January 4, 1983) is an American musician, best known for being the current lead vocalist for the metalcore band Underoath. Before fronting Underoath, Chamberlain was the vocalist for the band This Runs Through in which ...

Personnel

Personnel per booklet. Underoath * Christopher Dudley – keyboards, programming *

– drums * Grant Brandell – bass guitar * James Smith – guitar *

– lead vocals * Timothy McTague – guitar Additional musicians * Jeremy Griffith – additional bass guitar (track 5) Production *

– producer, engineer * Jeremy Griffith – producer, engineer * Ben Grosse – mixing * Ted Jensen – mastering * Justin Chapman – assistance, drum editing * Joe Butler – studio assistance * Jordan Butcher – art direction, design, collage * Underoath – art direction *

Brandon Ebel Brandon Ebel is the founder, president and CEO of Tooth & Nail Records. He founded the label in 1993 in California, United States. The label has since grown to include sub-labels BEC Recordings, Solid State Records and Uprok Records. Ebel has c ...

– executive producer

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:O (Disambiguation) Underoath albums Tooth & Nail Records albums Albums produced by Matt Goldman 2010 albums