Memphis May Fire released This Light I Hold on October 28, 2016, through Rise Records. Their fifth studio album moved further toward rock, with vocalist Matty Mullins and guitarist Kellen McGregor making more deliberate choices about what each song needed. Papa Roach’s Jacoby Shaddix joined the title track, a declaration of resolve under pressure, while the album’s running order gradually moved from frustration toward hope.
The change began with giving themselves more time. Mullins told Heavy Music HQ that the band had taken two months off the road specifically for writing, something they had not done before. “Having that time to be secluded and focus made a world of difference,” he said. McGregor also wanted another perspective on the instrumental arrangements, leading them to producer Matt Good. Mullins continued working with Cameron Mizell on the vocals.
McGregor’s aim was to make the individual songs more distinct. In a 2017 interview with UWM Post, he explained that they committed more fully to each track’s chosen direction. If a song called for extensive clean singing, they built around that decision. The shift toward rock involved giving those ideas enough room to define a song, rather than making every track follow the same balance of melody and aggression.
Mullins applied a similar resolve to the lyrics. He identified “Carry On” and “This Light I Hold” as songs that expressed things he felt compelled to say, even if they provoked disagreement. “I think honest art is good art,” he told UWM Post. That stance gave the title track its confrontational edge: its narrator faces judgment and hostility but refuses to surrender his voice.
The album’s broader emotional progression emerged after the songs were written. Drummer Jake Garland suggested sequencing them from darker material toward lighter themes, an approach Mullins had not planned during composition. In an interview with RockUrLife, Mullins compared the experience to moving through a tunnel toward its opening. The cover illustrated the same idea. He also described wanting listeners to acknowledge difficult feelings and learn from them, rather than treating pain as something that must immediately be escaped.
Shaddix’s appearance grew out of an existing friendship. He and Mullins met while presenting together at the Revolver Golden Gods Awards. In a 2017 Cross Rhythms interview, Mullins recalled that a conversation about their Christian faith helped establish the connection. When the title track’s lyrics were finished, he felt Shaddix was the right singer to join him. Their shared history gave the collaboration a personal foundation alongside the musical fit.
The video turned the song’s sense of being judged into a literal courtroom story. Directed by Caleb Mallery, it placed Mullins under suspicion following Shaddix’s disappearance, with the two singers trading vocal passages as the case unfolded. The elaborate narrative extended the song beyond a performance clip and made the guest vocalist central to its story. Elsewhere on the album, former My American Heart singer Larry Soliman appeared on “Not Over Yet.”
The material also began finding its place in the live set. During the band’s March 2017 tour, Mullins told UWM Post they had started performing “That’s Just Life” and named it among his favorite songs to play. The band’s investment in giving individual tracks their own character had produced another song he wanted to take onstage alongside established material such as “No Ordinary Love” and “The Sinner.”
