Chorus Of Angels: Revisiting Haste The Day’s underrated 2007 metalcore masterpiece, “Pressure The Hinges”

In their decade+ run as one of the more famed and respected modern metalcore bands, Haste The Day proved themselves to be a highly unique and skilled entity. While mainly a metalcore band, the band always considered themselves to be “rock and roll with breakdowns” – and that was never more evident than on their 2007 album Pressure The Hinges.

The band’s 3rd record overall, Pressure The Hinges signaled a sea change in the band’s style – marked especially by a vocalist change from Jimmy Ryan to Stephen Keech. Sonically, it’s the band’s most diverse to date. Take a track like “Janet’s Planet”, for instance. It’s a brilliant, slow-burning track that really evokes mid-period Deftones with its atmospheric post-rock. This song and a roaring finale “Chorus Of Angels” may be the outliers on Pressure The Hinges – but they are notable.

The mid-tempo tracks, especially “Akeldama”, “White Collar”, and “Vertigo”, tend to blend together – but that’s not a bad thing. These 3 tracks especially are some of the catchiest songs Haste The Day ever wrote as a band, and that’s not even counting “The Oracle”, which has a fun little breakdown in the middle before it speeds back up into one of the best choruses on the record. It’s songs like this that really keep Pressure The Hinges fresh – without sounding cheesy.

This entire record would already be enough to make it a solid effort, but it’s album closer “Chorus Of Angels” that’s worth the price of admission alone.
“Chorus Of Angels” is a strong contender for the band’s best overall song. A 6+ minute long track that really defines the word “epic”, it contains some of Stephen Keech’s best vocals to date, and plods along more like a post-metal band like Isis. That sort of ambition is what made Haste The Day loved by fans and critics.

While Burning Bridges and their presumed finale Coward are usually ranked as Haste The Day’s best records, it’s time to give Pressure The Hinges in that category as well. With all solid tracks and a few exceptional ones, Pressure The Hinges is metalcore with solid lyrics and an ambitious penchant for songwriting, too.