A couple nights ago, I downloaded a leaked version of the new Breaking Benjamin album, Phobia. I’d been looking forward to it for quite some time now.

I first heard of this band when I heard a clip of their first single, “Polyamorous,” on the radio back in…I’d say 2002. I downloaded that song, liked it a lot, and downloaded their first album, Saturate. I listened to it, enjoyed it a lot for a month or so, and then it sort of fell by the wayside as I acquired newer music.

I didn’t hear much about the band for a long time, until sometime in 2004, when I got tickets for myself, my brother, and my cousin to go to an Evanescence concert two years ago. They were headlining the show; Seether, Three Days Grace, and Breaking Benjamin opened, in the opposite of the order I just named them in.

To sum it up, the show just flat-out rocked. However, Breaking Benjamin really put on a hell of a set, in spite of equipment failures and a pretty sparse crowd. They’d just released their second album, We Are Not Alone, and I hadn’t heard any of it prior to their set. I liked what I heard, so I acquired that one as well.

During the rest of that summer, 2004, both their albums got a lot of airplay, both at home and in my car. They became sort of the soundtrack for the rest of my summer, and got me through some rougher times.

It was kind of ironic, to me at least, that I downloaded Phobia two years to the day after that concert back in 2004.

It’s good stuff.