"Nightfall" by Anchor & Braille, Saturday, July 16, 2022

Stephen Christian under the appellation of Anchor & Braille released their third record, in February of 2016. Stephen Christian said in an interview that he imagines a movie scene for his Anchor & Braille projects, and the title Songs for the Late Night Drive Home is descriptive of that movie scene. The electronic sounds imagine an urban setting--New York's "Lower East Side," Los Angelo’s’ Silver Lake, Orlando--anywhere that, during the day cars would fill the streets. But the late night drive home is peaceful. You're in your car driving past the empty office buildings for 34:23 seconds past midnight.

KISS ME LIKE YOU STILL BELIEVE.  Songs for the Late Night Drive Home is a kind of closing of the Stephen Christian electronic era, which started with Anberlin's Vital in 2012. In some ways, Vital was like the band had just discovered synthesizers. The band had scarcely used keys or synthesizers on their five records prior to Vital. Christian cited M83 and Washed Out as influences on Vital and Beach House and Washed Out as influences on the more chillwave Songs for the Late Night Drive. The band's sixth record Vital and its expanded edition Devotion offered a wide range of songs, from the electronic auto-tuned adventure of "Self Starter" and the lead single "Someone Anyone" to the dancey "Intentions" to the etherial "Other Side." Then there was the experimental one-take improvised vocals on Devotion's "IJSW." The song was recorded and produced by Paper Route's Chad Howat. Paper Route had opened on The Tour de Vital in 2013 and both Howat and Paper Route's lead vocalist JT Daly worked with Anberlin on their repackaging of Vital, Devotion. Howat's contribution was the most chillwave version of Anberlin, a song that showed off Stephen Christian's skills as a pop singer. Daly's contribution were two remixes on Vital: The Remixes, a record in which Anberlin even dabbled with dubstep. 

I KNOW IT'S HARD BUT YOU'VE GOTTA HOLD ON TO SOMETHING. But while Anberlin and Anchor & Braille may have experimented with electronics and fully committed with Vital, Devotion, and Songs for the Late Night Drive Home, it seems that the electronic-based music is out but electronic elements is in. By Anchor & Braille's Tension record, Christian chooses the organic sounds of guitar and piano. By Anberlin's Lowborn, the band blends electronics into the mix. From the band's latest singles, "Two Graves" and "Circles," it seems that electronics are still a big part of a now heavier sounding band. But unlike the seriousness and heaviness of post-Vital Anberlin, the mood of most of the songs on Songs for the Late Night Drive Home, with the exception of "Detroit Stab" and "Fatal Flaw,"are uplifting. Today's song, "Nightfall," is a love song, in a sense. Closing the first half of the record, the song is about holding onto someone. The speaker comes to the realize "how lost we are when we find that no one's found." Coming to realize that everything is kind of messed up, the speaker finds that holding onto a loved one will restore his belief.

Read “Nightfall” by Anchor & Braille on Genius