Formed in 2006 while all of its bandmembers were attending high school in Lodi, California, A Skylit Drive quickly established a familiar post-hardcore sound, combining the aggression of screamo with the pop-leaning aspects of emo. The sextet released its debut EP, She Watched the Sky, in 2007 on Tragic Hero Records. By the end of that year, A Skylit Drive had endured numerous lineup changes, a situation that lent itself well to 2008’s tense, angst-fueled full-length debut, Wires…And the Concept of Breathing. The album broke into the Billboard Top 200 and helped to establish the group outside of its West Coast confines.
The band kept busy throughout the year, touring with similar-minded outfits like Chiodos, Greeley Estates, August Burns Red, and Sky Eats Airplane, as well as releasing the live DVD Let Go of the Wires in December. The following June, A Skylit Drive released their sophomore effort, Adelphia, which marked their first release for Fearless Records. As usual, the guys supported its release by hitting the road, joining up with the Warped Tour that summer before traveling across America, the U.K., and Europe in early 2010. By February, they’d begun working on another album, Identity on Fire, which was released 12 months later in 2011, and would be the last LP to feature lead guitarist Joey Wilson, who’d left the band the following year. A Skylit Drive’s fourth studio long player, Rise, was issued in 2013 via Tragic Hero Records and peaked at the number 41 slot on the Billboard Top 200. The following year saw the departures of bassist/scream vocalist Brian White and drummer Cory La Quay, and in January 2015, the band released an all-acoustic version of Rise called Rise: Ascension. March saw the arrival of new members Michael Labelle (Ex Reverie) on guitars and Brandon Richter (Motionless in White) on drums, with the new full-length ASD dropping later that October. ~ James Christopher Monger, Rovi