Metalcore giants Killswitch Engage are giving their 2004 album The End of Heartache -- their third album and first with lead vocalist Howard Jones -- a 140g deluxe 2LP reissue on solid silver and black vinyl with bonus tracks, redesigned art, and a custom etching on side D by bassist Mike D'Antonio, limited and numbered. Originally released on Roadrunner, the reissue is coming via Run Out Groove and it's the album's first time pressed on vinyl in North America. The album's set to hit shelves in December, and you can pre-order it now in our store. Tracklist below.
The band reflected on the album for a Louder Sound feature last year. Here's an excerpt:
“Obviously, this was our first album with Howard [Jones, former Killswitch frontman who replaced the outgoing Jesse Leach at the time] and we knew what a great singer he was, so why the hell wouldn’t we utilise that?” Killswitch guitarist Adam D tells us when we ask him about the creation of the tune that would send his band stratospheric. “The song came together really easily. To be honest, I didn’t have to change the way that I wrote to incorporate Howard, or think about finding a sound that was more commercial; I just wrote something I thought sounded cool and he came in and made it soar. It just felt huge.”
The song Adam is referring to is the title track from Killswitch Engage’s classic third album, 2004’s The End Of Heartache. The album would serve as the follow-up to the equally excellent Alive Or Just Breathing, which had taken Killswitch from being a group of unknown, underground metal-loving punks to one of the most hyped young bands in the world. The transition had happened quickly, but Adam recalls that his band learnt to grow very quickly.
“When I think back to the early days of playing heavy music in little bars around the Boston area, I genuinely don’t think I could have written a song like The End Of Heartache back then,” he admits. “I’m not sure I would have been capable of doing it. We needed to have had experience playing those bigger stages and learning what worked live before I could have tackled something like that.”
Read more at Louder Sound and pre-order the new vinyl pressing here.