''Ø (Disambiguation)'' is the seventh studio album by American rock band Underoath. 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 List of capitals in the United States, capital and List of municipalities in Georgia (U.S. state), most populous city in the U.S. state of Georgia (U.S. state), Georgia. It is the county seat, seat of Fulton County, Georg ...

, 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 drummer and vocalist, Aaron Gillespie. On May 12, 2010, Underoath announced that they will be entering the studio on May 24, 2010 to record their next session. They 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 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''. Early life ...

then mastered the recordings at Sterling Sound.

Release and promotion

In July and August 2010, the band appeared on the Cool Tour alongside As I Lay Dying and Between the Buried and Me. 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. Artwork was unveiled 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 an American social media and online video sharing platform owned by Google. YouTube was founded on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim who were three former employees of PayPal. Headquartered in ...

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 positive reviews 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 ...

. At

Metacritic Metacritic is an American website that aggregates reviews of films, television shows, music albums, video games, and formerly books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted average). Metacritic was created ...

, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream publications, the album received an

average In colloquial, ordinary language, an average is a single number or value that best represents a set of data. The type of average taken as most typically representative of a list of numbers is the arithmetic mean the sum of the numbers divided by ...

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 Underoath. All lyrics by

Spencer Chamberlain Spencer Chamberlain (born January 4, 1983) is an American musician who is the lead vocalist for the Rock music, rock band Underoath. Before fronting Underoath, Chamberlain was the vocalist for the band This Runs Through in which his brother, Ph ...

Personnel

Personnel per booklet. Underoath *

– vocals * Timothy McTague – guitar * James Smith – guitar * Grant Brandell – bass guitar * Christopher Dudley – keyboards * Daniel Davison – drums 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

Charts

References

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