New Album, NEW SURRENDER, In Stores September 30, 2008! Full Bio
In today’s instantly downloadable and quickly consumed culture, bands like Anberlin are a dying breed. Over the course of six years and four full-lengths (including last year’s B-side compilation Lost Songs), the band have established themselves as one of alternative rock’s most exciting acts and as a band who refuse to limit themselves to one specific scene or sound... and it’s paid off. If the band reinvented themselves with last year’s sprawling album Cities—which debuted in the Billboard Top 20 and sold 34,000 copies its first week of release—they’ve transcended that sound with New Surrender. In fact, their latest album that shows the band reconciling all of their seemingly disparate moods into a cohesive blend of music that will lull you to sleep with gentle 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 which instantly caught on with fans of emotional music who didn’t want to be fed the same musical clichés—oh, and touring alongside acts like Fall Out Boy and My Chemical Romance to support that album didn’t hurt either. After playing literally hundreds of shows and growing as both musicians and people the band released their sophomore album Never Take Friendship Personal in 2005. Markedly more mature both musically and lyrically, that album established Anberlin as more than another underground sensation and showed that there was no limit to what the band could achieve. This same trend was evident with last year’s mainstream breakthrough Cities, which showed the band progressing even more and expanding their musical vision exponentially.
All this brings us to New Surrender. Although the album retains the Anberlin sound that fans have grown to love, in many ways it’s also an album of firsts that marks the next chapter in the band’s illustrious history. For example, after working for years exclusively with longtime producer/friend Aaron Sprinkle this time around the band decided to enlist legendary producer Neal Avron (Fall Out Boy, Yellowcard, New Found Glory) to capture their sound. Additionally, after selling 435,000 albums on the well-respected indie label Tooth And Nail, with New Surrender the band decided it was finally time for them to step up to a major label—and although they had been courted by various majors for years, the band decided to go with Universal Republic. “At Tooth And Nail there was a glass ceiling and there was no way to get our music out to all the people we wanted to reach,” Christian explains when asked about the band’s decision to change labels. “ To us, Universal Republic represents a sense of stability in this turbulent era for music: The staff is going nowhere, the label is here to stay and they have proven time and time again that they can take bands to the people—and that is where we belong... among the people.”
“The whole album is conceptualized around the theme of a new surrender in the sense that everyone in their lives has something 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 that theme of surrendering parts of life whether it’s a person or a vice.” In order to capture this idea, the band—which also features guitarist Joseph Milligan, bassist Deon Rexroat, drummer Nathan Young and new addition and former Acceptance guitarist Christian McAlhaney—spent three months in the studio with Avron carefully crafting their most fully realized effort to date.
In fact, from the equally cathartic and melodic track “Bittersweet Memory” to the soon-to-be summertime anthem “Haight Street” and acoustic ballad “Younglife,” New Surrender is the most varied album of the band’s career—something they credit largely to the new addition of McAlhaney, who has solidified the band’s lineup and become an integral part of the songwriting process. “I think it just felt right,” McAlhaney responds when asked when it was like to be thrown into a songwriting team of Christian and Milligan, who have been writing together for nearly thirteen years. Hide Bio
I just saw this awesome Anberlin video- you have to check it out!! They're performing their amazing new song Breaking and an acoustic cover of Danzig's song Mother.. it's soo good!! You can only watch it here at http://www.billboard.com/#/features/video-anberlin-does-danzig-talks-surrender-1003998950.story
you guys blew me away at englishtown. i waited 4 hours in the front row to make sure i wouldnt lose my spot for when you guys came on. and it was so worth it. the set list was perfect, you played all my favorites (except for whisper and a clamor) haha but seriously when you guys tour in the fall ill be there no doubt.