Disarm the Descent by Killswitch Engage

Disarm the Descent, Killswitch Engage's sixth album, came out on Roadrunner on April 2, 2013, and it's a homecoming. Howard Jones had parted ways with the Westfield, Massachusetts, band because of illness, and in January 2012 they announced that founding singer Jesse Leach was back, fronting a Killswitch record for the first time since 2002's Alive or Just Breathing. He sounds hungry: throat-shredding screams, soaring clean hooks and an urgency that lights a fire under everybody else.

Adam Dutkiewicz produced and played guitar alongside Joel Stroetzel, with Mike D'Antonio on bass and Justin Foley on drums, and the riffs come fast and sharp. "In Due Time" led off the singles and earned a Grammy nomination for Best Metal Performance. Critics mostly liked what they heard, the album opened at number 7 on the Billboard 200, and the band toured it for 166 dates between spring 2013 and fall 2014.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.