“Like Steps in a Dance” by Anchor & Braille, Wednesday, April 21, 2021

 

Anchor & Braille has been Anberlin's lead singer Stephen Christian's side project for a while. Some of Anberlin's songs started out as Anchor & Braille songs. In 2009, Christian collaborated with Aaron Marsh and a few other hometown musicians including Louis DeFabrizio of Gasoline Heart and released A&B's debut record Felt, an album that feels like if Christian were the lead singer of Copeland somewhere between their In Motion and Eat, Sleep, 
Repeat releases. Anchor and Braille's sound would very greatly over their occasional four albums as well as the make up of the 'band' would just become Stephen Christian collaborating in the studio with other musicians. I have yet to listen to 2020's Tension from start to finish, but of the three albums, Felt feels the best. You can tell that it's the same singer of Cities and Never Take Friendship Personal struggling relationships. 

SHE MAKES THREATS I HOPE THAT SHE SEES THROUGH. Felt was an album that appeared in Junior year of college (one of them :) around a month or so before New Surrender was released. The album was great studying music. Christian seems to make statements of faith with tracks like "Rust" (The Story of Mary Agnosia), "Introspect," and "Sleep. When We Die," and it was fun to see what a less-censored Stephen Christian might say. Ultimately, the album seems to be about loneliness and breakups. 
Christian seems to lose the ability to write about these subjects in his follow up The Quiet Life as well as Anberlin's Dark is the Way, Light Is a Place. Even though Anberlin's Vital sees an improvement in Christian's writing, he relies too much on cliches to talk around his subject matter. This is also present on the third Anchor & Braille record, Songs for the Late Night Drive Home.

SING TO ME EVERY NIGHT AND I'LL MAKE YOU THE HAPPIEST MAN ALIVE. Anchor and Braille performed at Cornerstone in 2011. It was really just Anberlin playing in a tent. Anberlin had played an average show ("Feel Good Drag" as an encore?), headlining the main stage after Blindside had sub-headlined. The band rushed over to a small tent to play Anchor & Braille songs. Christian explained that "Like Steps in a Dance" was the radio hit of the album if the album were to have a radio hit. It's one of the most fun and accessible songs on the album. Christian doesn't explore the range of his voice as much on this song. The mechanical beat and the piano and guitar make the song quirky and memorable. As for the lyrics, it's a veiled toxic relationship. If Christian writes about healthy relationships, he often runs into cliched lyrics. After completing this song and many one or two others, Anchor & Braille finished their set. My sister and I were able to get an autograph of Stephen's novel The Orphaned Anything's Memoir of a Lesser Known and we got a picture together. And that was the last time I saw Anberlin/Anchor & Braille in concert.




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