“Cold War Transmissions” by Anberlin, Saturday, July 2, 2022
The fourth track on Blueprints for the Black Market, "Cold War Transmissions,"
Anberlin starts to establish themselves as a potentially heavy band. The production on the track sounds reminiscent of the early-'00 sounds of Trapt or Trust Company, when having a hard rock song was the key to Alternative Rock success. Until Cities, Anberlin was on the path to becoming a harder and hard rock band, but with New Surrender and Dark Is the Way, Light Is a Place started to embrace a more ambient sound, with some notable exceptions. However, with the band's planned final album Lowborn and on their upcoming release Silverline on July 29th, Anberlin is back and heavier than ever!
SIDE BY SIDE WE FACE EACH OTHER. Stephen Christian has talked about how feedback from Anberlin's fans helped him to become a better lyricist. There is a significant improvement on the band's next record, Never Take Friendship Personal as some of the lyrics on Blueprints for the Black Market feel vapid. I've felt that about "Cold War Transmissions" in my experience of listening to Anberlin over the years. When the song first came out, in 2003, I was 16 years old. The Soviet Union had dissolved in 1991, when I was 4, so I had no memory of the it, but I remember seeing old maps and globes which included the Soviet Bloc rather than the modern countries. However, Stephen Christian, born in 1980, would have been more familiar with the Soviet Union, being 11 in '91. Christian has talked about this song being inspired by his memory of playing Risk with his brother. Christian said that his brother would always try to conquer The United States, but Christian would try to defeat the Soviet Union.
YOUR SPIES COME CLEAN/ THEY TOLD ME EVERYTHING. Still, "Cold War Transmissions" feels like the rough draft of a song lyrically. Stephen Christian would go on to write "Someone Anyone," a song inspired by the Arab Spring revolution in Egypt. He studied and was involved with humanitarian aid in college and just before Anberlin signed to Tooth & Nail Records and even started a humanitarian organization while in Anberlin called Faceless International. But in 2003, nobody was talking about Russia like they are today. Former Soviet Union intelligence officer Vladimir Putin had been elected the second president after Boris Yeltsin served, who had transitioned Soviet Russia into a democratic state. But under Putin, it started to be apparent that Russia was only democratic in name only. Putin served eight years from 2000-2008, then Dmitry Medvedev took the presidency from 2008-2012. Putin, however, came back to power in 2012 and has served as president ever since. Russia under Putin made international news for the country's oppression towards religious and sexual minorities, which continue today; however, when Putin commanded the annexation of Crimea from Ukraine in 2014, it wasn't hard to see history trying to repeat itself. However, while the annexation in 2014 was condemned internationally, that didn't stop Russia from going to war with Ukraine earlier this year. And with Putin now teasing nuclear war action against Ukraine and those who don't agree with Putin's decisions, it feels like the Cold War never really ended.
Comments
Post a Comment