Advent

The Arc of Advent

The pivots — what forced Advent to reinvent.

1. 01

   The Post-Beloved Hammer

   When Beloved shattered, Musten moved out from behind the drum kit to front a project that sounded entirely devoid of polite melodic hooks. Signing to Solid State Records, the band entered the studio with producers Al Jacob and Mitchell Marlow to cut 2008's Remove the Earth. The result was raw, metallic punishment that caught the Christian metalcore scene off-guard with its utter bleakness. You hear it immediately in the low-end churn: heavy, lumbering, and completely hostile to radio polish.

2. 02

   Down to a Four-Piece Bleakness

   Guitarist Matt Harrison bailed after the debut, cutting the band down to a leaner four-piece right before they hit the road for the Stronger Than Hell Tour. They hit the studio with Jacob, Marlow, and Jamie King to track 2009's Naked and Cold, an album that somehow managed to be even nastier and more claustrophobic than the first. The tracks leaned heavily into sheer dissonance and slow, deliberate thudding breakdowns that tested touring crowds. By 2011, drummer Chris Ankelein was out, the road grind took its toll, and they pulled the plug with a couple of Carolina farewell shows.

3. 03

   Bridge Nine Resurgence

   After four years of dead silence, the band reformed in 2015 with Jordan McGee locked down on drums and took their sound out of the metalcore circuit entirely. Signing to classic hardcore imprint Bridge Nine Records, they dropped the four-song blast Pain & Suffering in 2017. The transition stripped out whatever subtle studio padding was left, delivering four tracks of pure, concentrated fury that hit like blunt trauma. The guitars sounded uglier, Musten's throat sounded stripped to the bone, and the whole thing was over in less than fifteen minutes.

4. 04

   Independent Finality

   Ditching outside labels entirely, the quartet took absolute control of their output under their own imprint, Advent Records. Bringing in Jeremy White to produce and engineer, they dropped the God Is the End EP in July 2025. The production shed any remaining nostalgia for their late-2000s origins, favoring tight, concussive, low-end punches that hit right in the chest. It proved that despite fifteen years of fits and starts, they never found a single reason to soften up.

Influences

• Disembodied — Advent's reliance on lumbering, drop-tuned metallic riffs stems directly from the mid-90s Minneapolis standard set by Disembodied. You hear the blueprint all over Naked and Cold, particularly in the dissonant chugs and slow-motion breakdowns. It is metallic hardcore built on sheer dread rather than flashy thrash solos.
• Turmoil — The raw vocal delivery and relentless pacing of early 2000s metalcore acts like Turmoil paved the lane for Musten's transition from drummer to frontman. The off-kilter grooves and grinding tempo shifts on Remove the Earth borrow heavily from that aggressive Pennsylvania sound. They took that chaotic, unhinged energy and dialed it directly into the guitar tone.
• Coalesce — Advent took notes on how Coalesce utilized jagged, stop-start rhythms and unsettling discordance instead of standard four-four hardcore tempos. The unhinged arrangements across Pain & Suffering mirror that same jarring, hostile sonic approach. It keeps the listener off-balance by refusing to let a groove resolve cleanly.
• Living Sacrifice — Living Sacrifice set the precedent for heavy, unapologetic, faith-adjacent metallic hardcore that refused to water down its extremity, eventually taking Advent out on the Stronger Than Hell tour. The crushing, groove-oriented double-bass patterns on Remove the Earth clearly echo The Hammering Process. It gave Advent permission to remain uncompromisingly brutal within their regional scene.
• Buried Alive — The late-90s Buffalo hardcore grit of Buried Alive provided the backbone for Advent's mid-tempo stomps and throat-shredding vocal cadences. You can hear that direct, no-bullshit street-level assault in tracks throughout Naked and Cold. It cuts away technical self-indulgence in favor of devastating impact.