The Gray Race

The Gray Race is the ninth full-length album of the punk rock band Bad Religion, which was released in 1996. It was the follow-up to the band's highly successful 1994 album Stranger Than Fiction. This was the band's first album not recorded with original guitarist Brett Gurewitz (since the 1984 EP Back to the Known) and is their first release with Brian Baker, who replaced him during the Stranger Than Fiction tour. It was also the first album since How Could Hell Be Any Worse? that the band recorded as a group. Part of the reason for this was financial, but frontman Greg Graffin also wanted to foster a sense of unity following Gurewitz's jarring departure. This was also the first album with which Graffin solicited the opinions of other band members before recording. Graffin said that collaboration significantly improved the sound and quality of the album. Although not as successful as Stranger Than Fiction, The Gray Race achieved modest success when MTV ran a commercial for the album during its release. The album was re-released by Epitaph Records on September 15, 2008.