SAVED! is the first album of Kristin Hayter’s current project Reverend Kristin Michael Hayter, released on October 20, 2023. Like much of her work as Lingua Ignota, the album was produced by Hayter and Seth Manchester, and recorded at Machines with Magnets in Providence, Rhode Island. The album picks up where Lingua Ignota left off with SINNER GET READY and expands on Evangelical Christian lyrics, themes, traditional music, and Appalachian and Southern sounds. A significant portion of the album is comprised of covers or reworkings of traditional Christian music, such as “IDUMEA” and “HOW CAN I KEEP FROM SINGING,” with the rest of the tracks being inspired by similar hymns. Most tracks feature prepared piano, intentionally degraded sound, and multi-track vocals.
Hayter announced the ending of the Lingua Ignota project in November of 2022, and it concluded seven days before the release of SAVED! at Perpetual Flame v.2, a multi-day festival with other artists. Though religion had always been a major part of Lingua Ignota, the project’s final record, SINNER GET READY, shifted that religious focus from the Catholic to the Evangelical. Hayter, who was raised Catholic, lived at the time in the Appalachian Pennsylvania, and began to experiment with the sounds and aesthetics of the region, which skew Protestant and Evangelical in nature. Tracks like “THE SACRED LINAMENT OF JUDGEMENT” and “REPENT NOW CONFESS NOW” carry the same fire-and-brimstone fervor that would continue on SAVED!
The creation of Perpetual Flame Ministries on December 6, 2022 (shortly after the announcement that Lingua Ignota would soon end) served as a bridge between the two projects, setting the stage for early promotion of SAVED!. On July 11, 2023, Hayter posted a photo of the test pressing for SAVED! on Instagram, and the following month, she posted the phone number for the Perpetual Flame Ministries Information Hotline: 1-833-IM-SAVED (1-833-467-2833). The hotline provided information on the record and tour dates, and has not been updated since September 2023.