Once again, I am writing about a Christian metal album released during a strange and painful season of my life. This one, however, is not another grief album. It isn’t There Was a Light Here, the masterpiece from Demon Hunter I reviewed several months back. Haste the Day’s Dissenter is something harsher, stranger, and even apocalyptic. Given the geopolitical situations present at the time of its release, its message has an even sharper bite.
As singer Stephen Keech summarizes:
It’s a bit of a bleak story. The protagonist is in a dystopian society where the world is ending, and in order to create stability, the government is clamping down and authoritarianism rises. All voices of dissent are silenced, which leads to an extremely angry rebellion… And that leads to realizing that even in fighting this, violence begets violence, and war begets war. It’s a vicious cycle. Throughout the entire record there’s this theme of these cycles.
Dissenter is a different album entirely. The album is deeply apocalyptic—but not in the cosmic, divine-warfare sense of Revelation. There are no trumpets, raptures, or heavenly armies fighting evil. Instead, the narrative feels much more timely, and much more human. The apocalypse of Dissenter is nuclear war. It is an apocalypse of our own making, a total systemic collapse where humanity is left alone in the ruins of its own hubris.
Instead of depending solely on nihilism, the album fiercely argues that something beautiful can still be found when all is dark and dead. Through these tracks, Haste the Day provides a soundtrack for navigating the void, proving that even without an obvious savior, there is a profound, defiant hope in simply choosing to face the oblivion together.
Haste the Day is a Christian metalcore/hardcore band, around since 2001. The band name is taken directly from my personal favorite hymn, Horatio Spafford’s “It is Well With My Soul.” Their albums When Everything Falls (2005) and Coward (2015) remain my favorites. Now, after eleven years, they have returned with Dissenter.
I discovered Haste the Day around the same time as Demon Hunter, as a devout 14- or 15-year old looking for Christian hard rock. But, I have not always loved Haste the Day as deeply as Demon Hunter. When I was a Christian in high school, they were too heavy and intense for me. When I was an angsty agnostic, they were too Christian for me. Now that I am a reverent agnostic, they are the perfect band for me.
Shallows
The album begins with an almost unnecessary opener. Almost. It is only helpful if you are listening to the album cover-to-cover… which excludes 99% of Spotify listeners. It is certainly worth the experience. The opener, “Cycles” is just a warning siren with meaty guitar riffs. For most concept albums, I’d stop listening about right here.
But it also sets the stage for, to me at least, a contender for the best track on the record. Shallows. The chorus of this song is haunting. I am not exactly sure of the lyrical content. Upon reading lyrics on the web, it allegedly says:
We’ve held this up for a long time
But it all faded into grey lines [or, as I hear it, into graves]
And we all bleed for the same crimes in this life
A perhaps silly little detail. But I, listening over and over, cannot hear “it all faded into grey lines.” I hear: “we all fade into graves.” Perhaps the mind hears what it wants to… but that is where my stubborn mind stands. We’ve done so much and accomplished so little.
We created nuclear warheads that can wipe out entire civilizations. Why? Because we, as humans, are sick and cruel. A “nuclear race” is just: we wanna win, and if we can’t, then nobody can.
The ultimate hebel. As Ecclesiastes 3:19 says, “For the fate of humans and the fate of animals is the same; as one dies, so dies the other. They all have the same breath, and humans have no advantage over the animals, for all is [hebel]. All go to one place, all are from the dust, and all turn to dust again.”
Whether we are battling with nuclear warheads or sticks and stones, we all die. We all face Sheol, the grave. We all fade into graves. I’m afraid I do not trust Genius or AZLyrics on this one. Perhaps someone from the band can confirm?
Grave
The sky is turning red. As a child, deeply fascinated by the end times, I always imagined this. I can recall evenings with my family at Stone Mountain, imagining the blue sky towering the mountain turning blood red. As a child.
It was too real. And for this track, the overarching theme is: I never knew this would come. As a child, fearful of the Day of the Lord… to now, the razor-thin reality of the conflicts in Iran, Israel, or China turning into the end of it all. With, of course, the United States seeking destruction over peace.
Burn
Honestly, my least favorite track. It was released about two years ago, I believe. And it has not grown on me. It is the only piece of the album that, honestly, feels unnecessary. Why are we going from the end of humanity to wishing to burn our enemies? I have given this track numerous chances, and I mean no insult to Haste the Day, but this was a poor choice of a single. And worse, a lead single. Like the opener, this track is not necessary. Again, I speak from honesty, not cynicism.
Liminal
A comeback from “Burn,” “Liminal (feat. Silent Planet)” is one of the songs I have needed. In this month, I received my Master of Theological Studies from Emory University, graduating with a 4.0 and honors. Another university, where I was serving in a part-time capacity, denied me even the courtesy of an interview for full-time—in the position in which I serve. I had no choice but to take another, low-paying job just for insurance. All in the week I graduated.
Liminal refers to that which is, according to a simple Google search (with the annoying, but get-with-the-times AI overview), “being ‘betwixt and between.’” It is the in-between. The hallway. The corridor. The point of change before reaching a destination.
“Stuck in a liminal space,” the singer growls. “Lost in desperation, I lose myself in every lie,” the clean vocalist proclaims. And this month, that is the space I have been in. This world is, indeed, liminal.
Gnasher
Perhaps the “unlikely” favorite of the album. If not for my current circumstances, I would just think this song is strong. But it has become an anthem for me. “All hail! The caged animal!” In my opinion, this is the centerpiece of rage. This is the survivor’s fury at the authoritarian and oppressive machines and systems that drives humanity to the brink.
“Gnashing of teeth,” as those raised in the church can attest, frequently implies a biblical hellscape. Here, however, there is no seven-headed dragon. I imagine the more literal meaning of the song is worship of the “caged animal,” in that case echoing Revelation. But it is subtle enough to be open to interpretation, I feel.
The victim, as I hear it, is the caged animal. The underdog. An animal so beautiful, yet so vicious, that it must be caged. Its “bane is terminal.” Keep it caged, or else it will devour.
Heretic
One of my favorites, but also the only other one I will critique fiercely. The song is a pinnacle of hardcore/metalcore/punk. It is the Ramones on steroids, in my mind. It is heavy, angry, and all around beautiful. I could keep this song on repeat to appease my rage.
Could. I really want this song to be my favorite. But here… if I am being honest, Haste the Day leans too heavily on the Christian message. And thus alienates the nonbelieving listener. “You already know—you will reap just what you sow,” “He gathers up the strays,” “While the meek will live eternally.”
That is where the song begins to lose me. Not because Christian metal is forbidden from presenting a Christian message. That would be absurd. But because the best Christian metal, at least to me, does not merely announce—or list, rather—doctrines. It creates space for the wounded listener to encounter the questions beneath the doctrine. It provides a sense of, dare I say, holy rage. “Heretic” is musically ferocious, and indeed one of the strongest moments on the album, but lyrically it could be uninviting for many.
Escape
Thematically and lyrically, I feel this one follows Heretic. It’s good, but it is not one I am coming back for. I am still not sure how to interpret this one, as many times as I have listened. As with Burn, what does opening the gates have to do with anything? If a nuclear bomb is detonating, I feel nobody on earth will be asking this particular question.
It is beautiful and melodic. Like Heretic, it excels as a work of art. The messaging is more accepting of other beliefs here subtle like “Gnasher”… but what is the message? What gates need to be opened, and why? I leave this track frustrated, but unsure why. Maybe that is intended.
Adrift
We get much more haunting vocalization/lyricism in this song. After the previous two, it is a return to form. “Will you bring me back again to feel? To the end where home is real.” Now that… that has appeal to those outside of Sunday night Bible studies.
For the reverent agnostic, this song is about navigating a reality without the anchor of absolute religious certainty. It is in the embrace of another human that “home is real.” Take me back, not to the turn-or-burn/fire-and-brimstone sermons, but to the feeling of love. “Will you be there?,” the perennial cry of the sufferer, desiring companionship in the midst of tragedy. Perhaps a bit of foreshadowing for the closer.
Teeth
As others have said, this track stands out in the latter half of the album. The haunting choir elements in this track echo the ghosts of a long-forgotten world. Which, in turn, is juxtaposed with the raw, unfiltered reality of present struggles, exemplified in the unclean vocals.
Here, perhaps, we really get the dragon/beasts of Revelation. “To hold back the teeth/from sinking in deep.” “Its teeth are sinking in, we are becoming its mouth, you are the beast, you lead it out.”
The teeth of a nuclear holocaust. It devours all life on earth. It completely alters the natural process. We have created machines, weapons, capable of wiping out the entire earth. And as we look at the current geopolitical situations? The teeth are, indeed, sinking in deep.
It all falls apart. It slips through the fingers. The beautiful church structures, the trained choirs, the leadership of nations and those who perform the grunt work to make them “nations”… all hebel. All vapor. All vaporized. It’s gone.
Oblivion
The most beautiful track on the record. Already notable for being “nostalgic.” In my eyes, that just means it could have been featured on Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man. The song has only been out for a few months.
It is one of my favorite songs. Ever. There is no New Jerusalem descending. There is no Christ-figure returning on clouds.
Instead, there is only the blue oblivion, and the desire to find that one. Not the one. That one. Whether that is a friend, a romantic partner, or even a savior… finding them. At the very end. Before all is said and done.
I feel my words cannot do this song justice. It is far too beautiful. “My face to the abyss; will you stay with me?” That desire, that yearning from the entirety of humankind. Where is my one?
In the blue. In oblivion. And perhaps, in the end, when all is said and done, that “one” will be found.
Conclusion
Haste the Day has released a stellar album. Sure, I have some critiques. There are some things I wish they would have done differently. But I am perhaps one of few fans of Christian metal desiring Christian metal that isn’t so… well… Christian.
Haste the Day pulls this off better than most. They do not rely on Left Behind. Dissenter is not a retelling of Revelation. It is a very real, very alarming, reminder that the end could be just one poor decision away.
What is left? Is it how much we walked into a church, stood for praise and worship, and bowed our heads for prayer? Or is it found in the connection we have with others? Whether they are agnostic, Christian, pagan, or anything else… can we stop trying to force one narrative down the other’s throat?
Can we acknowledge that, as we speak, we are indeed in the “end times”? Whether that is days or centuries away… this is the end. Are we going to cling to legalism? Will we trust that, because our leader believes in Christ, that the destruction of humankind is Christ’s will? Can we cherish the relationships that we do have, for both the believer and non-believer?
Haste the Day has put forth an excellent case. The case for the other. Whether that other is “Jesus,” another human being, or anything else… is beyond me. But my deepest hope is that we can value each breathing human being exactly as they are: a human. Not a soul to be saved, not a casualty. And above all, not something that should become a long-forgotten number resulting from disagreements among world powers.
Check out the album here. Better yet, support Haste the Day here.
Featured image: Album artwork for Haste the Day’s Dissenter provided courtesy of Solid State Records.