One-X

One-X is the second studio album by Canadian rock band Three Days Grace, released on June 13, 2006 as their sole album under Sony BMG, the successor to Sony Music Entertainment's original roots and Bertelsmann Music Group. The Sony BMG joint venture was dropped in 2008, which led to Bertelsmann's Sony BMG stake going back to Sony. Produced by Howard Benson, it is the band's first album recorded as a quartet, as Barry Stock joined the group and took over lead guitar from lead singer Adam Gontier.

One-X was both critically and commercially successful, being certified silver in the United Kingdom and triple-platinum in both the U.S. and Canada and becoming the band's most successful album in terms of sales internationally.

Pre-release and writing
Before One-X was released, the band previewed some numbers from the upcoming album on several occasions. They played four of these new songs, including "Animal I Have Become" and "Never Too Late", at the H.O.P.E. Volleyball SummerFest in Ottawa during July 2005. The group began working on the album in February 2005 and was originally going to be produced by Gavin Brown with a scheduled release in the summer of 2005. However, the album's release date was pushed back to June 13, 2006 and was instead produced by Howard Benson. The band began recording the album in the winter of 2005. "Animal I Have Become" was released as a single and received substantial airplay before it was released with One-X.

Previews for four of the tracks on One-X were able to be found on Three Days Grace's Online Trading Cards. Tracks that could be previewed were "It's All Over", "Pain", "Never Too Late" and "Over and Over". Adam Gontier wrote many of these songs during rehabilitation after developing an addiction to oxycodone. "Usually we all sit as a group, hanging out, working together, but here I was just alone, writing about how I felt," as Adam Gontier said in his docu-drama about his experience, Behind The Pain. Some of the material written on the album were influenced from his rehab stint, including the songs: "Animal I Have Become", "Pain" and "Over And Over". Following his rehab stint, he rejoined the group and they settled at drummer Neil Sanderson's lake house and continued writing more songs for the album. Gontier said that the album was a lot more personal to him than their previous record. He wrote this album after feeling lonely and believed no one around him understood him, as well as how constant touring took a toll on him. While writing the album, Gontier was surprised to discover that the rest of his bandmates had experienced similar feelings of disenchantment and isolation from the road. This helped him come to terms with his feelings which ultimately helped the members come together more and complete work on the new record. Bassist Brad Walst explained how they wanted to take their time with the album and didn't want to have any time constraints that would "screw with our creativity." Guitarist Barry Stock stated that One-X is about, "feeling like a target, like you're standing alone in a crowd of people."

Musically, most of the instrumental parts were written in the band's rehearsal space in Toronto, where each member had different ideas for songs that accumulated over the last few years of touring. Half the record was written in Toronto, while the other half was written in Northern Ontario. Gontier would record 10 to 15 takes of each song, and decide which had the best vocal performances out of those takes and decide which ones to use for the final production with Benson.

The album cover depicts a string of connected paper dolls with checkmarks on all with the exception of one which is crossed out, thus One X. On the inside, the CD tray shows all red fish, except one black fish. This same image is also on the "Animal I Have Become" single cover. The lyrics are included in the album booklet. The Japanese and UK edition of One-X contains the bonus track, "Running Away".

Promotion
To support the album, Three Days Grace headlined the One-X Tour that began in June 2006 with support from Staind. Gontier also launched the Three Days to Change tour doing free concerts at treatment centres, shelters, group homes and detention centres across North America. The group later performed in Japan and Australia in 2007. The band continued the tour in 2008 performing in the US with supporting acts from Breaking Benjamin and Seether. The band also co-headlined a North American fall tour with Breaking Benjamin in 2007. They supported Nickelback on the All the Right Reasons Tour in February 2007. A recording of their tour, entitled Live at the Palace 2008, was released in August 2008.

Commercial performance
The album debuted at No. 2 on the Canadian Albums Chart selling just under 19,000 copies in its first week. The album also entered the Billboard 200 albums chart at No. 5 with first week sales of more than 78,000 copies. The album has sold over 1.2 million copies in the US and 158,000 units in Canada.

Reception
One-X was met with positive reviews. The Toronto Star complimented the album with a review title of "One CD worth buying..." and focused on its lyrics, stating, "The lyrics really speak out to you, especially if you're going through a tough time in your life." AllMusic reviewer Corey Apar praised the music, saying it "remains catchy despite its lyrical darkness." However, he criticized the lack of distinctive qualities that could have separated them from their alt-metal peers but stated, "One-X certainly plays as a proficient step in the right direction." Kaj Roth at Melodic criticized the predictability of the album, stating "Three Days Grace has lost their soul, their debut was a lot better!" Roth, however, praised the songs "Animal I Have Become" and "Pain". Andrew Blackie of FasterLouder gave a negative review of the album stating, "they just cram as many hooks as they can into twelve songs about anything and everything, and find themselves lost in the sickening over production."

Accolades
In 2007, One-X earned the band an award for Rock Artist of the Year by Billboard magazine. The album also earned a Juno Award nomination in 2007 for Album of the Year. They won a Mediabase award for most played rock song on radio in Canada for their single "Animal I Have Become". One-X has been certified triple platinum in both Canada and in the US, respectively. All four of the album's singles as of February 2018 have gone platinum with "Animal I Have Become" and "Never Too Late" being multi-platinum. In addition, "Time of Dying", was certified gold in the same month.

Personnel
Credits adapted from the album's liner notes.

Three Days Grace
 * Adam Gontier – lead vocals, rhythm guitar
 * Neil Sanderson – drums, backing vocals
 * Brad Walst – bass guitar, backing vocals
 * Barry Stock – lead guitar

Additional musicians
 * Ned Brower – background vocals on "Animal I Have Become" and "One-X"
 * Taylor Locke – background vocals on "One-X"
 * Deborah Lurie – string arrangements on "Over and Over" (recorded at Fire House Studios, Brooklyn, New York, New York)
 * Casey Stone – string engineering

Production
 * Howard Benson – producer, keyboards and programming
 * Mike Plotnikoff – recording
 * Hatsukazu Inagaki – assistant engineer
 * Paul DeCarli – Pro Tools editing, additional programming, programming on "Time of Dying"
 * Chris Lord-Alge – mixing at Resonate Music, Burbank, CA
 * Gersh (Drum Fetish) – drum technician
 * Marc VanGool – guitar tech
 * Ted Jensen – mastering at Sterling Sound, New York, NY

Artwork
 * Brian Kushner – editor for the enhanced portion
 * Purple Can Post – facility
 * Three Days Grace – art direction and design
 * Warless Rabit – art direction and design
 * Jackie Murphy – art direction and design
 * Jeff Gilligan – art direction and design
 * Dean Karr – photography