Project Regeneration Vol. 1


Project: Regeneration Vol. 1 is the seventh studio album by American industrial metal band Static-X, released on July 10, 2020 by Otsego Entertainment Group, distributed by The Orchard Music, a subsidiary of Sony Music. It is the band's first studio album in eleven years following Cult of Static, and their first album not on Warner Bros. or Reprise Records. The album features part of the last recordings of deceased front man Wayne Static, who died in 2014, with his role being filled by a new front man credited as "Xer0". Project Regeneration sees the return of the original Static-X lineup—bassist Tony Campos, guitarist and programmer/keyboardist Koichi Fukuda and drummer Ken Jay—and was produced by Ulrich Wild, who has produced and/or mixed all but two albums by the band in the past.

Background and development

Static-X frontman Wayne Static passed away in November 2014 after an accidental drug and alcohol overdose. At the time of his death, he and the founding members of the band were estranged. Before his passing, Static was working on demos which he sent to a producer, who was a mutual friend of Static and Campos; when he rediscovered the recordings after Static's death, he contacted Campos and sent the material to him, but Campos felt it was "too soon", and hasn't revisited the recordings until 2016. Campos additionally found numerous demo recordings of songs that did not make the Start a War record on DA-88-s while he was looking for live backing tracks for the upcoming tour; because of the recording technique of the DA-88, vocals and instruments were recorded simultaneously on two different tapes, but some tapes were lost or too damaged to be recovered.
Although the band originally intended to recruit guest vocalists to contribute to Static's compositions, the band announced in June 2019, "We unexpectedly uncovered even more unreleased tracks left behind by Wayne... many of these had isolated vocal performances!" Consequently, the band is taking more time to complete the record, which "will now have fewer guest vocalists and more complete songs featuring lead vocals by Wayne Static", with the exception of Ministry's Al Jourgensen.

Tripp Eisen contribution controversy

Former guitarist Tripp Eisen has claimed twelve of the songs on the albums were co-written by him during his time in the band and has accused the current band of attempting to release his work in a heavily altered form to try to avoid paying him royalties. Eisen also stated that a "legal dispute" is the reason for the album's delay.
The band has since confirmed they are using some of Eisen's contributions when responding to a fan query on Instagram but stated Eisen had no involvement in the studio whatsoever and that his contributions to the album are previous composition credits only. Eisen has publicly claimed a new song is on the album and additional previous compositions with Static beyond the 3 that are credited. Volume 1 ultimately included 3 songwriting credits to Eisen, listed only as "T. Salvador" in the CD's notes.

Release and marketing

On October 23, 2018, bassist Tony Campos, guitarist Koichi Fukuda and drummer Ken Jay announced that they were reforming to tour for the 20th anniversary of Wisconsin Death Trip and would release Project Regeneration, featuring compositions and vocals recorded before Wayne Static's death in 2014. Along with the announcement, the band shared a trailer for the album featuring clips from an upcoming music video and snippets of five previously unreleased songs. The band made several bundles of the album available for pre-order, with fans who pre-ordered the album able to have their name featured in the liner notes. Matt Zane will direct several music videos for songs from the album.
On February 6, 2020, the band released the album's first single, "Hollow", their first single in 10 years. According to Tony Campos, "Hollow" dates back to the recording sessions of Start a War, but was not released on the album or any album after due to the music not being fully realised. The band later replaced the instrumental tracks underneath the vocals under the advice from the producers to avoid resembling the original demo material. Furthermore, the band also announced they were expanding the album to two volumes due to the amount of recordings they found.
On May 15, 2020, the band released the album's second single, "All These Years", with an accompanying music video. The band also announced that the album's standard release on streaming and CD was pushed back to July 10, 2020, with the vinyl edition pushed back to August 14, due to manufacturing delays associated with the COVID-19 pandemic. Tony Campos, speaking to Loudwire, said, "The album is 100% complete. We are just waiting for the manufacturing to resume. We have been given word that all is finally in production, so we are excited to get this out to the fans."

Critical reception

called it a "labour of love" and DriveTribe called it "a brilliant mix of the fast industrialism that made Wisconsin Death Trip so awesome and the more alt-metal stylings of Shadow Zone and Start A War". Reviewers also noted the late Wayne Static's presence on the record, writing that "despite the breakup and the very founder’s death Static-X is still a Wayne Static project through-and-through", and "although a fair amount of the music was re-written or heavily re-worked by the surviving band members, Wayne’s sheer talent still clearly shines through".

Track listing

Songwriting credits found on Spotify, sourced from Otsego Entertainment Limited

Personnel

Static-X