Halfway Human is the fifth studio album by American metal band Within the Ruins. It was released on March 3, 2017. It is Within the Ruins' first studio album to feature bassist Paolo Galang, who joined in 2015. The album was praised by critics for the incorporation of new elements such as clean vocals on the part of Paolo and Tim Goergen (both a first for Within the Ruins) in addition to screaming/death growls. The album debuted at number 191 on the Billboard 200, selling 4,025 copies in its first week.

On May 3, 2016, Within the Ruins announced via a Youtube video that they'd be re-entering the studio to record a follow up to 2014's Phenomena. Via a release that accompanied the video, the band noted that they'd be recording at their own studio under the leadership of guitarist Joe Cocchi. Within the Ruins noted that they would then be returning to Zing studios in Westfield, Massachusetts to engineer vocals with Jim Fogarty, who had worked with renowned metal acts such as Killswitch Engage and The Devil Wears Prada. Jim had helped engineer the band's debut Creature, which was also produced at Zing in 2008.

On May 6, speaking on the writing process, guitarist Joe Cocchi stated that the band took a different approach towards the recording of Halfway Human that would result in a "different sounding" album:

"The writing process was a bit different for this album," says Cocchi. "We took a step back and kind of reviewed some of our older material. Typically we'd rush and blast out a group of songs and then hit the studio. At the time it felt right. And It had a more organic feel. Now because of a combination of maturity and honestly just feeling sick of the same old formula, we really focused on creating something different sounding."

Cocchi concluded:

"We went back to a more organic style of writing and production. I personally was finally able to abandon a lot of my writing habits or 'rules,' if you will. No more 'oh, that part doesn't really sound like us, have to change that,' type of bullshit. Doing that created a fresher sound. This is the most raw and extreme sounding material we've ever written. Keep an eye out for studio blogs and more updates."

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Wikipedia