Grey Daze - Amends... Stripped (2021) Hi Res

As if the overwhelming emotions and cathartic release of the full-length Amends were not enough, Grey Daze's acoustic reworking Amends... Stripped should have fans of the late Chester Bennington reaching for the tissue box once again. Just five tracks long, the EP takes some of the best moments on Amends and, as the title suggests, strips them of the studio bells and whistles, revealing a more bare-bones approach that centers on Bennington's huge voice and passionate delivery. Raw and vulnerable, these selections hit a nerve similar to Alice in Chains' MTV Unplugged set or Chris Cornell's live Songbook. The sparse "Soul Song" devastates like a eulogy, just as the urgent "Sometimes" hits so hard one might forget it's acoustic. Meanwhile, "The Syndrome (Stripped - DEMO)" is the roughest around the edges, ending the EP on its most exposed note. Curious listeners should still start with the LP that was released in 2020, but once that's been digested, Amends... Stripped serves as an extra potent dose of mournful celebration of a voice gone too soon.