Shadow Zone is the third studio album by the industrial metal band Static-X, released on October 7, 2003. Marked by many personnel and stylistic changes, the album sports a much more melodic sound than any other work in their catalog, while still staying in the confines of their industrial metal and nu metal sound. It was the first of two albums to feature guitarist Tripp Eisen, and is the band’s only album to not feature an official drummer, due to the departure of Ken Jay just prior to the album’s recording sessions; drumming duties were subsequently handled by Josh Freese.
In 2002, Static would be contacted by Jonathan Davis of the nu metal band Korn. Davis had recently signed on to provide the soundtrack for the Queen of the Damned film soundtrack, but due to contract limitations with Sony, was legally unable to actually perform the music he had written for the soundtrack. As a remedy of this, Davis contacted a number of metal vocalists, Static included, to sing on the songs he had written. Static provided vocals for one track, “Not Meant for Me”, with the Queen of the Damned soundtrack releasing in February 2002.
Meanwhile, prior to starting up sessions for a third album, tensions had grown high within the band. The band found success with their platinum-selling debut album, Wisconsin Death Trip in 1999, but dissatisfaction grew in the band in creating the follow-up, Machine in 2001. With their first album, the band had created it together, led by Static, whereas with the follow-up, the album was completely written by Static alone. Static had felt anxiety in being able to recreate the success of the first album, and resented the band for not helping him work on the second while touring. Concurrently, the rest of the band resented Static for leaving them out of the process when telling him they’d rather focus on touring. The move led original guitarist Koichi Fukuda to leave the band, and left the rest of the members largely upset with Static. Guitarist Tripp Eisen was brought in to replace Fukuda.
While the album was still described commonly as industrial metal, nu metal, alternative metal, much like the rest of their work, Shadow Zone focused much more on melody than any other album in their catalog.
Tracklist:
- Destroy All
- Control It (Static, Eisen, Tony Campos, Ken Jay)
- New Pain
- Shadow Zone
- Dead World
- Monster
- The Only (Static, Eisen, Jay)
- Kill Your Idols
- All in Wait (Static, Jay)
- Otsegolectric
- So (Static)
- Transmission (Static, Eisen, Campos, Jay)
- Invincible (Static, Eisen, Jay)
Static-X
Wayne Static: lead vocals, guitar, keyboards, programming
Tripp Eisen: guitar
Tony Campos: bass, backing vocals
Nick Oshiro: drums (credited but does not perform)
Session musicians
Josh Freese: drums
Ken Jay: additional keyboards
Production
Josh Abraham: production
Steven Gilmore: artwork
Ulrich Wild: mixing
Ryan Williams: engineer
Tom Whalley: executive producer
Wayne Richard Wells (November 4, 1965 – November 1, 2014)
