Collector’s Corner: Atreyu - ‘A Death-grip on Yesterday’ 20th Anniversary Rerelease

It’s time for another edition of Collector’s Corner! In this series, we try to collaborate with artists to discuss seminal records in their discography! Sometimes these are special edition vinyls or deluxe reissues. This time we’re doing our first foray into metalcore in this space, with Atreyu’s critically acclaimed A Death-grip on Yesterday!

First, I need to thank Atreyu, Earshot Media, and Craft Recordings for the hookup and for collaborating on this one! This new version of Atreyu’s landmark rerelease is in honor of the 20th anniversary of the record which dropped on 10/30/2026 on Craft Recordings!

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Background

If you do not already know, Atreyu were formed back in 1998 in California by guitarists Dan Jacobs and Travis Miguel, lead vocalist Alex Varkatzas, and bassist Kyle Stanley. Fun fact, the band did not have a drummer until a friend of the band, invited his brother Brandon Saller to join. The band worked consistently when they dropped A Death-Grip on Yesterday in March of 2006 on Victory Records. The record was the band’s third studio LP! It reached number 9 on the Billboard 200. The main personnel for this one included Alex Varkatzas – unclean vocals, Dan Jacobs – lead guitar, Travis Miguel – rhythm guitar Marc McKnight – bass, backing vocals, and Brandon Saller – clean vocals, drums, percussion, additional guitar, keyboards, programming. The band co-produced the album along with Josh Abraham (Slayer, Alkaline Trio, Thirty Seconds to Mars).

The Music

Atreyu are known as pioneers in the metalcore genre, which blends elements of harder heavy metal with melodic instrumentation and vocals.  A Death-Grip on Yesterday featured two singles, “Ex’s and Oh’s” and “The Theft”. The album would have tracks featured in the Madden NFL franchise and Guitar Hero, Saller has noted on A Death-Grip on Yesterday, “the first album we made where we took fearless leaps into the unknown.”

The Reissue

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The reissue comes in three versions, standard black, fire smoke, on Craft Recordings and blazing yellow (limit 500) on Revovler. The LP played like an absolute dream on my turntable. The artwork on the insert features members of the band ablaze, similar to the image on the cover.

Metalcore is a genre, I’m getting into heavily and have always loved the juxtaposition between the clean and unclean vocals found in this music. Adding one of Atreyu’s most important LPs (and a crucial record for the genre) is awesome for my ever-expanding vinyl collection.

The band's current line-up consists of guitarists Dan Jacobs and Travis Miguel, lead vocalist Brandon Saller, bassist and unclean vocalist Marc "Porter" McKnight and drummer Kyle Rosa.