Track By Tracks: The Final Witness - Beneath The Altar (2025)

How did this album come about?

The story of how The Final Witness materialized is an interesting one. After I had gotten out of the military over a decade ago, I played briefly in a metal band with some friends in Washington State. Through that, I met some awesome people in the music scene, but I took a break from music to refocus on my relationship with Christ. I was burned out, struggling with PTSD symptoms, and having an existential crisis over who I was and what I believed. I was raised Christian, but my experience in Iraq and the Middle East challenged my theological positions to the point where I had Christ on my lips, but my heart was far from Him. After revisiting the church of my upbringing, I quit music to focus on my relationship with Christ and to get my life together.

During this time, I recorded demos of metal songs with my own vocals, lyrics, and guitar playing. In my previous band, I was an instrumentalist and composer, but not the lead vocalist. I poured my heart and soul into these demos and lyrics, inspired by the bands that fueled me in my teenage years, like Becoming The Archetype, Zao, Extol, Living Sacrifice, and many others in the Christian metal scene. After recording these ideas, I put them down, focused on recovery and my career, and these songs lay dormant for over a decade.

After gaining stability in my life, I was in a place to start exploring the music project again. I was following Jason Wisdom on social media, and he put out an open call for anyone to send him demos to do mixing and/or mastering work. Not thinking anything of it, I sent him a link to my demos and forgot about it. I did not think I would hear back, or that he would care. Imagine my surprise when Jason reached back out and asked if I could send him the stems for the demos to work on in his home studio! Shocked and elated, I explained the original stems were long gone, and I had to re-record each track. Which wasn’t an issue because of how excited I was to work with Jason Wisdom from Becoming The Archetype, one of my favorite bands growing up. Work on the album began in earnest sometime around mid-2023 and finished around a year or so later. I re-recorded my demo songs with new lyrics and riffs, and with the help of Jason, more coherent song structures and vastly improved production. I also wrote new songs to round out the album. Beneath The Altar ended up being seven songs plus my cover of the Christmas carol “God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen,” which is included on the physical disc but released as my first single in December 2024.

I’m extremely happy with how the album turned out. I poured my heart and soul into every riff, every solo, every lyric, every nuance of each track to do my best and make something truly special worthy of any music aficionado’s metal collection, Christian or otherwise. Jason is awesome, and his experience helped elevate the album with his production, mixing, and mastering experience. The Final Witness was always envisioned to be something pushing Christian metal forward, mixing old and new school ideas to create something unique and special. In a scene where it is easy to feel like everything’s been done before, my goal was to try and bring Christian metal to new heights and experiences, while honoring the sounds and bands that paved the way for Christian metal.

1. Principalities:

This song was the first demo that I created, rediscovering my relationship with Christ in that tumultuous period. With Jason’s help, I fleshed out the song structure a bit, and I tried to focus on a vision of the eternal realm, of angels, demons, and cosmic forces engaged in conflict. The unorthodox nature of the riffs and tonalities was intentional, to set a tone of looking behind the curtain of reality and into eternity, where physical space and time as we understand them don’t really exist. I went for a Zao meets BTA feel with a strong blues influence.

I wanted the song to feel weird because Eternity is weird, while also sounding like a cosmic battle between unimaginable powers and forces. The interlude is meant to provide that contemplative pause because we’re looking behind the curtain of reality, where nothing makes sense to the temporal mind, before hitting you with a solo that illustrates what it sounds like when angels fly and ride into battle to crush demonic forces. Whenever I’m composing, I take an almost cinematic approach with how I try to convey these complex images and ideas as a songwriter.

2. Coronation:

The order of the tracks on this album closely follows the sequence in which they were produced. After wrapping up Principalities, I was listening to Slayer’s “Behind the Crooked Cross” and I love that song’s driving tempo and feel. I wanted to replicate classic thrash metal inspired by Slayer, while implementing ideas of modern metal. The song is about the Judgement Seat of Christ, and the majesty, formidable power, and Holy terror people will feel standing before Christ, fully revealed. The song takes a twist in the middle, turning from a classic thrash song into chaotic metalcore territory inspired by bands like The Chariot. That chaotic riff in the outro is meant to communicate the absolute terror of seeing Christ in all His glory, and knowing you aren’t ready to meet Him. He is described as having great power and authority, being honored as the Lord of All, and said to possess the keys to Heaven and Hell. I've long wanted to use metal to capture both beauty and terror, which this track demonstrates.

3. Beneath The Altar:

So, fun fact: This song and the song right after it used to be one track. I started feeling ambitious after wrapping up Coronation, and I wanted to make a concept track illustrating the Jewish Temple in the Old Testament, with an ascending song structure that crescendos into the main riff of this track right as the Holy of Holies was being entered by the priest. I might revisit this idea in a future album, but it didn’t quite come together on this release. My cinematic imagination was running wild, visualizing the whole ritual and procession of the Old Testament priesthood. It was my first attempt at writing such an ambitious song, and with Jason’s help, we split up ‘Beneath The Altar’ and ‘Sanctum Of The Holy’ into separate tracks with different feelings and song structures, because the vision I was going for wasn’t coming together like I had hoped. Sometimes when writing songs, you take risks, and it doesn’t always pay off.

I re-envisioned the song to be about God’s justice towards the martyrs and oppressed, referencing the martyrs beneath the altar in Heaven in Revelation chapter 20. It’s a song about vindication and victory for the Saints who have been martyred, and anyone else who has been brutalized by the evil in this world, being vindicated by the total annihilation of the wicked. The interlude is intended as a celebration; if even the martyrs are calling for God's justice, it's not our place to question their actions. It is also meant to be a reflection on our own hearts. Do we genuinely love God’s justice? Do we love God’s Holiness and character? God destroying the wicked is perfectly in line with His love and mercy towards the innocent.

4. Sanctum Of The Holy:

This track is about the severity and sober fear of the priesthood in the Old Testament. For general feel and vision, I leaned back into my Zao influences, while implementing a more muscular feel to match the stoicism and warrior nature of the ancient Israelites. The sacrifices and rituals were performed with careful attention and respect, reflecting the belief in the significance of God's holiness. Priests had to wear ropes in case they died in the presence of God so they could be pulled out of the Holy of Holies by the other priests. In another instance, Nadab and Abihu were killed by God for experimenting with strange fire in the worship prescribed by God. The song is an overall meditation and visualization of God’s terrifying power and Holiness, and in the new Covenant with Christ, we should have that same reverence. God has not changed.

5. Negative World:

A few years ago, I began reading more Christian apologetics, and there were a couple of people and works that really influenced my thinking when it comes to proving the existence of God in a post-modern world: “Life In The Negative World” by Aaron Renn, and Greg Bahnsen’s work with presuppositional apologetics. The ideas laid out by these men, when overlaid with the advancement of tech and pleasure governing our lives, illustrate a very dark future ahead for serious Christians.

With recent AI breakthroughs and the looming technocracy on the horizon, we are heading into a post-post-modern world, where depravity runs rampant and truth is becoming harder to discern. I envisioned a track that expressed the severity of just how bad things are going to get, while still providing hope for those in Christ. The evil lies on the horizon, and we’ve only seen the beginning of just how corrupt politicians and corporations can be in the Western developed world. The effects of this on society will only get worse over time if there’s no change in overall direction, as we sink lower into “Brave New World” territory, being numbed by pleasure and blinded to the truth. To me, this relates to the transcendental argument for God, which I believe is really the only way forward for arguing the existence of God with those who deny His existence. You must engage people on the absolute deepest level of their thinking to combat the materialism and atheism of the modern world.

We’ve replaced philosophy with scientism, and now we’ve inherited a world that has all the pleasure and advancement the world can offer with no meaning to justify it. The sound and character of this track are meant to transmit this type of sober anxiousness, knowing that perseverance in the face of evil will only get harder as time goes on if things don’t change.

6. Testimony:

This track is a very personal one, about my own spiritual journey. I had fallen far from God in my 20s, and this song reflects my experience in war, my spiritual implosion afterwards, and God’s grace guiding me back to where I knew I could find peace and transformation. It’s not a reflection on my own righteousness, like I had the power come back with my own effort, but rather God’s unending mercy working with my heart. Each interlude between verses is meant to sound like pages turning in a journal, describing negative spiritual experiences and the internal spiritual war that ensued. Towards the end, there’s a refrain meant to reflect the aftermath of a warzone with military drums, with only one man standing: Christ, who reached out His hand, and lifted me up, a bloodied and wounded soldier who needed a healer. It’s a very traditional Gospel message of struggle, hope, and redemption. I did my best to convey these deep personal feelings and struggles in my journey throughout this track.

7. The Blood:

I’m a huge fan of big, epic final tracks on albums. From Five Iron Frenzy’s “Every New Day,” to Becoming The Archetype’s “End of the Age,” I love it when bands go big on the finale. This was one of the first demos I recorded, during a time at my most spiritually vulnerable. Instead of changing the lyrics, I kept them and added a refrain from one of my favorite Protestant hymns growing up. It’s a song about knowing you aren’t where you’re supposed to be and praying to God for help and intervention. Growing up, I was a huge Five Iron Frenzy fan, and I wanted to make a metal version of “Every New Day,” that had a similar mood of desiring healing and restoration, but in a progressive metal context. Shifting moods between desiring the intervention of Christ, while also recognizing the need to repent and turn away from sin, and the fear of the looming judgement for all people, I tried to auditorily communicate each of these reflections as they happen, similar to my own racing mind when I was going through this dark spiritual time in my life. All anxiety is then relieved by the Blood of Christ, bringing renewal and healing to the soul through a powerful refrain and solo. This one was played with soul and intention, knowing it could save someone’s life.

8. God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen (Freedom From Satan):

Surprisingly enough, the cover of this old Christmas carol started out very simple, but morphed into an ascension of moods and contemplations about the fact that Christ’s death conquered the works of Satan and the demons on this Earth. We are free from Satan’s power, and that is the true comfort and joy expressed in the original hymn. This Christmas song was influenced musically by the original Halo soundtrack, with the intention of creating a distinctive and memorable arrangement. Halo and Christmas are warm, happy memories for me, so it was a natural fit. I had a ton of fun working on this one, and it was the first Final Witness single released by Rottweiler. I might do another Christmas cover in the future, but right now I’m knee-deep in songwriting and spiritual contemplations for the next album, which I promise will be something that no one is expecting.

This album was a labor of love for everyone involved, and I’m very excited to share it with the world. Special thanks to Jason Wisdom for his excellent skills on the engineering and production side, Timonn Kokott for the brilliant artwork, and Jairus Pascal with Rottweiler Records for making all of this happen. Whether you are Christian or not, I think you can enjoy this album. It’s metaphysical in nature, meant to bring the listener into the realms beyond this world with its lyrics and arrangements. I’m incredibly proud of it, and I’m very excited to keep making music for The Final Witness for years to come.