In 2002, AFI left Nitro Records. A&R Luke Wood signed them to DreamWorks Records following intense record label interest. Their first album for the label, "Sing the Sorrow", was released in 2003. The album opened in "Billboard'"s top ten and scored enthusiastic lead reviews in major music magazines. The songs "Girl's Not Grey", "The Leaving Song Pt. II", and "Silver and Cold" had some Billboard chart success and exposed the band to even larger audiences. The Leaving song PT.2 was also featured in the video game Madden NFL 2004. They were nominated in the 2003 MTV Video Music Awards for the MTV2 award category for the "Girl's Not Grey" video, which came to be their first VMA. Around this time, "The Pitch" described the band's fan club as a "particularly excitable bunch", adding that "there's also the type of sentiments that put the "cult" back into cult success, such as links to something called "the Church of Havok"."