[3][4] The break ended up being an extended one, with Burnley later taking former band members guitarist Aaron Fink and bassist Mark James Klepaski to court over making unauthorized decisions without his consent on the band's 2011 greatest hits album Shallow Bay: The Best of Breaking Benjamin.

[6] The collaboration ended up being such a positive experience that Burnley decided to involve the entire band in the writing process for their next studio album, Ember.

[8] Dancer and actor Derek Hough (who had previously covered "Ashes of Eden" in a choreographed music video)[9] has an appearance on the track "The Dark of You", saying that the opportunity was "a dream come true".

[11] Burnley jokingly stated that the album was originally supposed to be titled Ass-End, a purposeful play-on-words of the word "ascend", but the record label expressed displeasure with his idea.

[8] He also noted that the album takes advantage of the three-guitar player dynamic, but still doesn't depart from the band's established sound.

[13] Burnley first mentioned Ember as the album's name in October 2017,[14] with a more formal and widespread announcement, along with a tentative release date of the second quarter of 2018 occurring in December 2017,[15] later confirmed to be on April 13, 2018.

[25] To promote the album's release, they embarked on a North American tour with Avenged Sevenfold and Bullet for My Valentine in early 2018.

AllMusic was generally positive about the album, comparing it favorably to the work of Chevelle, Disturbed, and Shinedown and concluding that "As far as variety goes, this is a fairly standard collection of tunes from a band that is mainly concerned with giving fans what they want and expect.