"Watch You Burn" by Anchor & Braille, Sunday, January 15, 2023 (repost)

With fans’ hearts freshly broken from the whirlwind year of 2014– when Anberlin announced their disbandment, final album, and last world tour—lead singer Stephen Christian certainly wasn't walking away from music. First settling down in Nashville, he began exclusively writing songs for other artists. But in mid-2015 he released two Anchor & Braille tracks, "Detroit Stab" and "Fatal Flaw." In February of 2016, Anchor & Braille released Songs for the Late Night Drive Home, the third full-length project with the lead single, "Watch You Burn" and a lyric video proceeding the album's release.

I WANNA WATCH YOU CATCH FIRE. In interviews Stephen Christian has stated that Anchor & Braille projects usually reflect the style of music he's currently listening to. For the third installment, Christian talks about listening to Washed Out and M83, which can be heard in the chill, "late-night" synth sounds of the album. Working with songwriter Joey Belville of the ‘90s electronic band The Echoing Green on several songs, the dreamy pop sounds further the vision Anberlin started to realize from their Vital/Devotion era. Lyrically, Anchor & Braille's second album, The Quiet Life,  seemed to be lacking, almost as if Stephen Christian was in the uninspired lyrical phase of Dark Is the Way, Light Is a Place. His songwriting picked up by Lowborn, yet the majority of the last album was about saying goodbye. And while Anchor & Braille and Anberlin often have thematic crossover, it seems that Late Night is a fresh approach with Anberlin's demise being a distant memory. As an album, Songs for the Late Night Drive Home feels like it's a soundtrack for after the party and everyone is going home. It's the emotional opposite to The Weeknd's After Hours, in that The Weeknd wrote an album of that partially deals with the emotional crash after the party ends. Whatever you're driving home from in the late night hours when you listen to Songs for the Late Night Drive Home, probably was something you look back fondly on. 

BUT IF I DON'T MOVE ON, THEN ALL THEY'LL EVER BE IS DREAMS. "Watch You Burn" opens Songs for the Late Night Drive Home with dreamy synths. The lyrics are cliché and the metaphors mixed. It's an empty motivational speech. But Stephen Christian's voice brings a level of authenticity. It doesn't matter that it's a motivational speech that gives no concrete details other than "go out there and get to work," it's a song. The song gives some relatable imagery of lying beside the one you love "staring up at ceilings" talking dreams. But the chorus reminds us that if we don't put our dreams to action, nothing will come of them. And while the lyrics don't give us a path to success, Stephen Christian is an example of someone who has made his dreams become a reality. Besides his music career, he founded a charity, wrote several books, dabbled in podcasting, earned his MBA while touring full time, and became a music pastor. Not all of these ventures worked out, but he often attributes his success the Rick Ross song "Every day I'm Hustlin'." And that hustling is what we have to do in today's economy to make the money we need for the lifestyle we want. Sure, somethings down work out, but "Watch You Burn" challenges us to try.

Read “Watch You Burn” by Anchor & Braille on Genius.