HYBRID THEORY

WHEN LINKIN PARK SINGER CHESTER BENNINGTON DIED IN 2017 HE WAS PLANNING A REUNION ALBUM WITH HIS PRE‑FAME BAND GREY DAZE. NOW, THAT ALBUM HAS BEEN COMPLETED – WITH VOCALS BENNINGTON HAD RECORDED, AND GUEST APPEARANCES BY GUITARISTS FROM KORN, HELMET AND BUSH. GREY DAZE GUITARIST CRISTIN DAVIS LEADS THE TRIBUTES...

- Amit Sharma

“We’ve been sitting on this thing for a while,” explains Grey Daze guitarist Cristin Davis. It’s no exaggeration. The music his group have been holding onto stretches as far back as the early 90s, when a young Chester Bennington started his first band with some school friends, releasing two albums before leaving to discover worldwide stardom as the frontman of nu-metal chart-toppers Linkin Park.

The project had been revived in 2017, with plans to tour and record being tragically cut short by the singer’s suicide on July 20th of that year, aged just 41 years old. Three years on from the day that shook the rock and metal world to its core – and, crucially, with the blessing of Bennington’s family – Amends is an album that reworks some of their existing music for a major label release, breathing new life into the earliest recordings from the prodigious singer’s career...

“All of us have at some point said his lyrics were kinda prophetic,” continues Davis, who joined the band for the reunion, replacing deceased guitarist Bobby Benish, though was also close to Bennington and indeed all of Grey Daze during their original tenure. “It’s like he wrote his ending before he wrote his beginning. That’s why we named the record Amends because those lyrics felt like an apology from beyond. Some of these songs can quickly bring me to tears, despite having listened to them so much over the last couple of years...”

Truth be told, the 11 tracks heard on Amends