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06-23 Anberlin walk alone
06-09 Anberlin release Lacerate
07-01 Anberlin to release Silverline
09-04 Anberlin Rise From The Grave
04-09 Anberlin NA Tour
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In today's instantly downloadable and quickly consumed culture, bands like Anberlin are a dying breed. Over the course of sixyears and four full-lengths (including 2007's B-side compilation Lost Songs), the band has established themselves as one ofalternative rock's most exciting acts and as a band that refuses to limit itself to one scene or sound... and it has paid off. Ifthe band reinvented themselves with last year's sprawling album Cities - which debuted in the Billboard Top 20 and sold34,000 copies its first week of release - they've transcended that sound with New Surrender ...read more
In today's instantly downloadable and quickly consumed culture, bands like Anberlin are a dying breed. Over the course of sixyears and four full-lengths (including 2007's B-side compilation Lost Songs), the band has established themselves as one ofalternative rock's most exciting acts and as a band that refuses to limit itself to one scene or sound... and it has paid off. Ifthe band reinvented themselves with last year's sprawling album Cities - which debuted in the Billboard Top 20 and sold34,000 copies its first week of release - they've transcended that sound with New Surrender. In fact, their latest albumshows the band reconciling all of their seemingly disparate moods into cohesive blend of music that will lull you to sleep withgentle harmonies one minute and shake you to the core via raw,distortion-drenched rock riffage the next.This control of dynamics has embodied Anberlin's music since their 2003 debut Blueprints For The Black Market whichinstantly caught on with fans of emotional music who didn't want to be fed the same musical cliches - oh, and touringalongside acts like Fall Out Boy and My Chemical Romance to support that album didn't hurt either. After playing literallyhundreds of shows and growing both as musicians and people the band released their sophomore album Never TakeFriendship Personal in 2005. Markedly more mature both musically and lyrically, that album established Anberlin as morethan another underground sensation and showed that there was no limit to what the band could achieve. This same trendwas evident with last year's mainstream breakthrough Cities,which showed the band progressing even more andexpanding their musical vision exponentially.All this brings us to New Surrender. Although the album retains the Anberlin sound that fans have grown to love, inmany ways it's also an album of firsts that marks the next chapter in the band's illustrious history. For example, after workingfor years exclusively with longtime producer/friend Aaron Sprinklle this time around the band decided to enlist legendaryproducer Neal Avron (Fall Out Boy, Yellowcard, New Found Glory) to capture their sound. Additionally, after selling 435,000albums on the well-respected indie label Tooth and Nail, with New Surrender the band decided it was finally time forthem to step up to a major label - and although they had been courted by various majors for years, the band decided to gowith Universal Republic. "At Tooth and Nail there was a glass ceiling and there was no way to get our music out to all thepeople we wanted to reach," Christian explains when asked about the band's decision to change labels. "To us, UniversalRepublic represents a sense of stability in this turbulent era for music: The staff is going nowhere, the label is here to stayand they have proven time and time again that they can take bands to people - and that is where we belong... among thepeople.""The whole album is conceptualized around the theme of a new surrender in the sense that everyone in their lives hassomething they know they have to give up," responds Christian when asked about the title of the band's latest opus. "There's something that's holding each of us back from who we could become, so I think each song kind of tackles thattheme of surrendering parts of life whether it's a person or a vice". In order to capture this idea, the band - which alsofeatures guitarist Joseph Milligan, bassist Deon Rexroat, drummer Nathan Young and new addition and former Acceptanceguitarist Christian McAlhaney - spent three months in the studio with Avron carefully crafting their most fully realized effort todate.In fact, from the equally cathartic and melodic track 'Bittersweet Memory' to the soon-to-be summertime anthem 'HaightStreet' and acoustic ballad 'Younglife', New Surrender is the most varied album of the band's career - something theycredit largely to the new addition of McAlhaney, who has solidified the band's lineup and become an integral part of thesongwriting process. "I think it just felt right", McAlhaney responds when asked what it was like to be thrown into asongwriting team of Christian and Mulligan, who have been writing together for nearly thirteen years. "There was no trialperiod, we just went for it", he continues. "It definitely helped having someone else to bounce ideas off of", Milliganconcurs, adding that he's confident that New Surrender is undoubtedly the band's strongest album to date.Although both of the band's guitarist have completely different styles, they perfectly complement each other bothrhythmically and melodically on New Surrender - and this sonic interaction has added a new level of depth to Anberlin'salready powerful sound. Additionally,this renewed sense of enthusiasm doesn't just apply to the guitars but also carries overto Stephen's vocals, which manages to achieve almost religious levels of grandeur on the falsetto-fueled 'Retrace', or soaring,operatic ballad 'Breathe'. "Neal [Avron] did not let me get away with anything", Christian explains, noting that everyvocal part on the album is sung individually without relying on studio trickery such as auto-tuning. While this unorthodoxapproach required additional work on the band's part, the result is a vocal performance that shows Christian extending hisalready impressive range and solidifying him as one of the strongest frontman in the genre.New Surrender is also the first Anberlin album to work the band's well-documented humanitarian efforts into the lyrics,which have included going to Kenya to teach about AIDS prevention or travelling to Calcutta, India, to educate the massesabout the dangers of human trafficking. "I live in Los Angeles now, so I wrote a song about homelessness because that'ssomething that's so prevalent in my life", Christian elaborates. "There's also about another song about living unselfishlyand the lyrics say 'I want to live and die for someone else /the more I live, I see life isn't about me'. I'm really excitedthat we've got to the level lyrically where our fans don't listen to Anberlin for just the basic 'Oh girl, I want to hold yourhand'", he says, noting that the supportive nature of Anberlin's fans gave him artistic license to. « hide |
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