Human (Three Days Grace album)

Human is the fifth studio album by Canadian rock band Three Days Grace. The album was released on March 31, 2015 through RCA Records. This is the group's first album without original lead singer Adam Gontier, and the first with My Darkest Days lead singer and Brad Walst's younger brother Matt Walst.

Background and recording
Following Adam Gontier's exit from the group in January 2013, Matt Walst of My Darkest Days served as his replacement during the band's US tour with Shinedown. The group later confirmed in March 2014, that Walst would officially be taking over as the band's new frontman.

Recording for their fifth studio album began in late 2013 and recorded it at Noble Street Studios in Toronto with producer Gavin Brown, who produced the band's debut self-titled studio album. According to drummer Neil Sanderson, the album features more raw and aggressive sounds than their previous records. Bassist Brad Walst also added that they went back to their hard rock roots for this album and credited Brown for "getting them in the right mindset." "Painkiller" was the first song they wrote for the album, as well as the first one they wrote with Matt.

The group embarked on the Human Tour in North America from July to November 2015, in support of the album. The band later toured across Europe and Russia from January to February 2016.

Singles
On April 1, 2014, the band released the album's lead single "Painkiller". On April 8, 2014, the song was released to US rock radio stations. The song reached number one on the US Mainstream Rock chart, which made it their eleventh number-one single. The album's second single, "I Am Machine" was released on September 30, 2014. The song topped the US Mainstream Rock chart. On March 23, 2015, "Human Race" was released as the third single. On September 15, 2015, "Fallen Angel" was released as the fourth single.

Reception
Human received positive reviews from music critics. Johan Wippsson of Melodic stated, "Matt really delivers here and shows that his voice suits really well for this type of rock and believe that many of the band's fans agree with me. The rest of the album is almost the same class and overall is it very solid, actually a little better than expected." Allison Stewart of Revolver stated that "little has changed" on the album compared to their previous record Transit of Venus outside of their use of synths. Heather Allen at Mind Equals Blown stated "It's always worrisome when a singer gets replaced because the band that you've come to know and love could easily do a complete musical 180." MusicReviewRadar stated "the departure of the iconic Adam Gontier could have forced the band's loss of identity and direction but Matt Walst managed to fill in Adam's spot without becoming a complete replica" and that "the album was a good surprise [...] well balanced between soft and good-old Three Days Grace-style tracks." Darryl Sterdan of Toronto Sun gave a negative review of the album remarking that the group "resumed churning out the same morose, morbidly misanthropic modern-rock/post-grunge/alt-metal crud-blort as before." Jeff Miers of The Buffalo News described the album as "a collection stuffed with the sort of generic alt-metal that makes radio programmers squirm with delight and makes the rest of us deeply suspicious."

Commercial performance
The album debuted at number two on the Canadian Albums Chart, selling 6,700 copies in its first week. The album peaked at number 16 on the Billboard 200 and sold 18,000 copies first week. As of January 8, 2016, the album has sold 121,000 copies in the US.

Human earned a nomination for "Rock Album of the Year" at the 2015 Loudwire Music Awards, though ultimately lost to Dark Before Dawn by Breaking Benjamin.

Personnel
Credits adapted from the album's liner notes.


 * Three Days Grace
 * Matt Walst – lead vocals
 * Barry Stock – guitar
 * Brad Walst – bass guitar, backing vocals
 * Neil Sanderson – drums, keyboards, programming, backing vocals


 * Additional musicians
 * Additional keyboards, synth and programming by Dani Rosenoer
 * Additional composers: Ted Bruner (3), Joey Moi (3), Mark Holman (7), Christopher Millar (3), Doug Oliver (2), Johnny Andrews (2, 6), Gavin Brown (1–12), Casey Marshall (10) and Marti Frederiksen (7)


 * Production
 * Produced by Gavin Brown
 * Engineered by Lenny DeRose
 * Mixed by Nick Raskulinecz (tracks: 1, 4, 5, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12), Chris Lord-Alge (tracks: 2, 3, 6), Keith Armstrong and Nik Karpen
 * Mastered by Joe LaPorta
 * Studio assistants: Alex Krotz, Nathan Yarbourgh, Dim-E Krnjaic, Kevin O'Leary and Trevor Anderson
 * Editing and Pro Tools by Dave Mohacsi and Alastair Sims
 * A&R by David Wolter


 * Artwork
 * Creative director: Erwin Gorostiza
 * Art direction by Chris Feldmann and Three Days Grace
 * Design by Chris Feldmann
 * Photo by Michael Muller
 * Illustrations by Matthew Curry