Dissenter is the seventh studio album by Indiana-based Christian metalcore band Haste the Day, released on May 1, 2026 via Solid State Records — their first album in eleven years, following 2015's Coward. The record reunites many of the band's most recognizable members, including lead vocalist Stephen Keech, guitarists Brennan Chaulk and Scott Whelan, Dave Krysl, bassist Michael Murphy, and drummer Giuseppe Capolupo, with Keech also helming production. Haste the Day first re-emerged in 2024 with the single "Burn" and an appearance at Furnace Fest before formally announcing the album in early 2026. The eleven-track, 39-minute record follows the structural arc of a three-act concept: Act 1 — "Cycles," "Shallows," and "Grave" — maps the realization of decay and systemic corruption; Act 2 — "Burn," "Liminal" (featuring Silent Planet), "Gnasher," and "Heretic" — descends into rage and collapse; and Act 3 — "Escape," "Adrift," "Teeth," and "Oblivion" — reaches toward transcendence and release. As Spill Magazine summarized, the album functions as "a distorted, dark confession inked in blood — a howl from the faultline."Sonically, Dissenter does not attempt to reinvent the band's established sound so much as deepen and refine it. The guitars carve through dark, cinematic textures while Keech's drumming provides dense rhythmic armour, and the interplay between Keech's raw, urgent vocals and Chaulk's melodic guitar work provides the record's emotional core. Jesus Freak Hideout noted approvingly that Chaulk's melodic sensibility draws on European metal influences — The Ocean and Katatonia are cited — rather than chasing accessible pop-metal hooks, keeping the record firmly within the darker, more textured corner of the metalcore world. "Shallows," the lead single, is broadly regarded as the album's standout — an aggressive, melodic centrepiece built on high-energy riffs, heavy breakdowns, and a memorable chorus that the band has described as confronting "disillusionment, corruption, and the cost of defiance." The album's sole quibble among most critics is the brief opening instrumental "Cycles," which at 77 seconds functions more as a cinematic preamble than a proper song.
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