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Afraid of Heights (Billy Talent album)

2016 album by Billy Talent

Manuscripts, fine bindings, an engraving plate and preserved performance ephemera
Arts and lettersInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionJul 19, 2026
Entity authorityQ24067238 ↗
Source-derived summary

Afraid of Heights is the fifth studio album by the Canadian rock band Billy Talent, released on July 29, 2016. It is the band's first album in four years following 2012's Dead Silence.

It is the first album recorded without drummer Aaron Solowoniuk who had suffered a multiple sclerosis relapse and had to take a hiatus from recording and performing to focus on his health. Jordan Hastings of Alexisonfire and Say Yes recorded the drums for the album and played on the supporting tour. The album sold approximately 53,000 units in its first week.

Recording and release

On January 5, 2016, the band posted a photo of a Condenser microphone on their Facebook page, with the caption "It begins", alluding to the beginning of the recording for the album. On January 15, 2016, drummer Aaron Solowoniuk announced through a YouTube video that he would not be able to play drums for the foreseeable future due to a multiple sclerosis relapse. He also announced that Alexisonfire drummer, Jordan Hastings, would be recording the new album with the band, as well as performing on the tour supporting the album, though Solowoniuk would still be in the studio with the band and involved in a smaller capacity.

On May 12, 2016, the band released the first single off the album – "Afraid of Heights", for free streaming on Alternative Press. A day later, the single was released through YouTube, iTunes, Spotify and other digital retailers.

Editorial summary

Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Afraid of Heights (Billy Talent album)” is 2016 album by Billy Talent. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Afraid, Heights and Billy, not as a finished interpretation.

Editorial reviewA useful identification and reception guide that helps separate the work itself from editions, performances, ownership and later interpretation. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—2016, 2012—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 2016-07-29. For this dossier, Afraid, Heights and Billy is the immediate research focus.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The phrase “2016 album by Billy Talent” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.

Evidence profile

Object files, edition statements, performance records and contemporary criticism preserve different stages of the work’s history. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jul 19, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q24067238. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 2016 and 2012.

Critical limits

Rights, attribution and provenance may remain disputed even when a general reference summary presents a stable account. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Separate the work, its editions or performances, and its later reception. Catalogue records, publication histories and object files often preserve different parts of that story.

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  • Tracing reception history
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Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Afraid of Heights (Billy Talent album)”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Afraid of Heights (Billy Talent album) primary sources, Afraid of Heights (Billy Talent album) archive and Afraid research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Afraid of Heights (Billy Talent album)” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.