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

. Released on November 9, 2010, through Tooth & Nail Records, the album was the band's only without founding member Aaron Gillespie, and is the first and only record by the band with Daniel Davison, 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 498,7 ...

, the same studio where the band's previous album, '' Lost in the Sound of Separation'' 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 '' Lost in the Sound of Separation''. Following the departure of Gillespie, Underoath recruited ex–Norma Jean drummer Daniel Davison for drumming duties. Sessions were held at Glow in the Dark Studios in

with producers Matt Goldman 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 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 sharing and 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 Google, and is the second mo ...

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 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 average). Metacritic was created by Jason Dietz, Marc ...

, 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 * Daniel Davison – drums * Grant Brandell – bass guitar * James Smith – guitar *

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

References

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