Twenty years after it first hit shelves, Atreyu’s A Death-Grip on Yesterday is coming back. Craft Recordings will reissue the 2006 metalcore landmark on October 30, available now for pre-order on black vinyl plus two limited color variants: Fire Smoke through Craft and Blazing Yellow through Revolver.
The album marked a turning point. Fresh off the gold-certified The Curse and a grind of Warped Tour dates, the Yorba Linda, California band — then Alex Varkatzas, Dan Jacobs, Travis Miguel, Marc McKnight, and Brandon Saller — headed into the studio with co-producer Josh Abraham and opened the sound up. The riffs stayed heavy. The hooks got bigger. The choruses started sounding like they belonged in arenas.
It paid off immediately. A Death-Grip on Yesterday debuted at No. 9 on the Billboard 200, the band’s first Top 10 album. “Ex’s and Oh’s” became the calling card: a hard-charging, instantly sticky single that reached No. 24 on Mainstream Rock Airplay, landed in Madden NFL 07 and Guitar Hero II, and later turned up on Jersey Shore. Tracks like “The Theft,” the opening salvo “Creature,” and the raw “Our Sick Story (Thus Far)” showed they could stretch without losing the bite that defined their early Victory Records years.
Saller has called it the first record where they took “fearless leaps into the unknown.” That willingness to evolve is why it still holds up.
Alongside the reissue, Atreyu have put “Her Portrait in Black” on digital platforms. Cut during the same sessions but left off the album, the song originally appeared on the Underworld: Evolution soundtrack. It’s a grim, memorable leftover that fans have wanted easier access to for years.
The band’s path after Death-Grip was fast. They finished Taste of Chaos with Deftones and Thrice, played Ozzfest, signed to Hollywood Records, and dropped Lead Sails Paper Anchor in 2007 — another Top 10 debut. Two decades later they’re still at it. The current lineup of Saller, Jacobs, Miguel, Kyle Rosa, and Porter McKnight released The End Is Not the End earlier this year on Spinefarm. They remain a reliable live draw, with recent and upcoming festival slots including When We Were Young, Sonic Temple, Welcome to Rockville, Louder Than Life, and Aftershock in Sacramento on October 2.
A Death-Grip On Yesterday
Listen to A Death-Grip On Yesterday on Spotify · album · Atreyu · 2006 · 9 songs
A Death-Grip on Yesterday 20th anniversary vinyl tracklist:
Side A
- Creature
- Shameful
- Our Sick Story (Thus Far)
- The Theft
- We Stand Up
Side B
- Ex’s And Oh’s
- Your Private War
- My Fork In The Road (Your Knife In My Back)
- Untitled Finale
Pre-order the vinyl and stream “Her Portrait in Black” now. For a lot of fans who came up in the mid-2000s metalcore wave, this one still feels like the moment Atreyu proved they could grow without sanding off the edges.
