When electronicore band Attack Attack! broke up in 2013, shortly after the release of the previous year’s This Means War, many fans were surely sad that their run had come to an end. While certainly not the first or the most pioneering band in their niche genre (Enter Shikari says hello), they were one of the most popular, despite multiple member changes in their (relatively) short run as a band. While it should be noted that the band spawned hilarious crabcore memes that still run rampant to this day, they played main stage at Warped Tour (not something many bands got to do in their career), and sold a bunch of records to boot. In short, they were successful and influential – considering the legion of bands that attempted to mimic their sound.
The band’s final release, This Means War, was closer to the first Beartooth record than anything else. Removing almost all the electronics from the equation and adding a double dose of metalcore, the end result was an album that the band ultimately would have been successful touring off of, if they had chosen to continue with that current lineup. It wasn’t to be, of course, but apparently there’s an entire AA! record that’s been recorded, but was never released.
In a new in-depth interview with Rock Sound, former AA! (and current Beartooth) vocalist Caleb Shomo discussed the existence of the mythical 4th Attack Attack! record:
“On the subject of co-writing, I had always been weird about it. I have only ever co-written with a small group of people and when it comes to Beartooth that’s even less. I wrote with John Feldmann on the first record. We’ve been friends for a long time. We actually recorded a whole Attack Attack! album together that never got released. The day that I turned in the master for ‘This Means War’ I flew out to LA for another month and just recorded a whole other record. Basically him and me stayed friends through that whole thing, which was a bit messy, and he was one of the first people who actually hit me up when I left the band. We wrote ‘In Between’ together, which obviously did very well. I work well with him because he knows who I am as a person and what Beartooth means so wasn’t going to mess with it. He wouldn’t compromise anything, he would just help me.”
Notably, there’s a Change.org petition for this album to get released too, and while it’s only around 400 signatures right now, maybe it’ll go way up after you read this. Maybe.
It’s really interesting to consider where Attack Attack! may have gone if they had stuck together. Would they have burned out like of their peers? Would their 4th record have evolved them to the point where they’d still be thriving? The possibilities are endless.
