Seventh Day Slumber

Seventh Day Slumber, a Christian alt-rock group whose sound has shifted across rock, metal, and melodic adult pop territory, issued several independent releases during the early 2000s before achieving wider recognition with the 2005 album Once Upon a Shattered Life on EMI-affiliated BEC Recordings. In subsequent years the outfit solidified its status as a consistent presence on Christian charts through efforts such as 2007’s Coming Awake and 2011’s The Anthem of Angels. By confronting themes of faith, depression, and emotional trauma with an aggressive approach, the band cultivated a devoted audience despite repeated personnel changes documented on later projects including 2014’s We Are the Broken and 2019’s Closer to Chaos.

The group originated in Dallas in 1996 under the leadership of singer and primary songwriter Joseph Rojas, a onetime cocaine addict who embraced faith following a near-fatal overdose. Its original roster—Rojas, guitarist Evan Weatherford, bassist Joshua Schwartz, and drummer Adam Witte—secured a deal with Afinia Music, which issued the debut album Matthew Twenty-Five in 1999. The band next moved to Mercy Street for 2001’s Freedom from Human Regulations, after which Word put out 2003’s Picking Up the Pieces.

BEC Recordings subsequently acquired the group, reissuing an expanded edition of Picking Up the Pieces alongside the fourth album Once Upon a Shattered Life, both in 2005; the latter introduced the band to Billboard rankings via placements on the Heatseekers and Christian Albums charts. At that point only Rojas and Schwartz remained from the founding lineup. They next delivered Finally Awake in 2007, which reached number 16 on the Christian albums chart, and followed it a year later with the Spanish-language album Rescátame (“Rescue Me”). March 2009 brought Take Everything, comprising three new compositions and nine reworked gospel standards; credited to Rojas, Schwartz, guitarist Jeremy Holderfield, and drummer Jamie Davis, the set climbed to number 11 on the Christian chart and also appeared on the Billboard 200. That fall saw the EP Take Everything: The Acoustic Sessions, and BEC released the retrospective collection A Decade of Hope in spring 2011. Later the same year the band’s eighth studio album, The Anthem of Angels, landed in the Christian Top 30; the first release without Schwartz, it featured bassist/guitarist Brent Milligan. After issuing the more restrained 2013 collection Love & Worship, which blended original material with covers, the band concluded its association with the label.

Distributed by Universal, VSR Music Group released the subsequent album We Are the Broken in 2014, returning the group to the Heatseekers chart and the Christian Top 30. A shift toward a harder-edged sound continued with the Redline EP in fall 2015. Credited to Rojas, Holderfield, bassist Ken Reed, and Joseph’s son Blaise Rojas on drums, the 2017 album Found reflected the frontman’s recovery from depression. Two years later the soaring, melodic Closer to Chaos addressed sobriety, trauma, suicide, and faith.