NewYearsDayProject | a song a day blog

Some listeners have criticized Anberlin albums for sounding the same. Many of the band’s albums, especially earlier releases, follow a formula. This formula is usually a hard rock opener, a radio-friendly chorus-driven song, back to hard rock, a mellow middle album, some rockers in the center, and a lengthy closing track. While the vestiges of the formula remain throughout their discography, they began to experiment more in their later career. Anberlin's 2012 record Vital was an update on the band’s mostly guitar-based sound as many of the songs were synth-driven. The band experimented more with Vital’ s repacked album, Devotion , delving deeper into hard rock and electronic pop. HIDE THE DEMONS THERE UNDER YOUR DRESS. Stephen Christian said on the Your Favorite Band Podcast that Anberlin repackaged Vital as Devotion, taking the commercial failure from Universal Republic Records to Big3 Records , hoping to push the opening track, “ Self-Starter ” to the radio. Devotion, unlik

On January 16, 2014, Anberlin posted a video on their social media platforms with a special message . The three-minute eighteen-second black and white video opened with a quote by Helen Keller; a droning guitar riff; and footage of a sideways camera playing a loop of a city from a car, an Anberlin concert, and footage from their “ Paperthin Hymn ” music video --all with a new emblem watermarking the footage. That new watermark was of fingers crossing. As the footage played, each member of Anberlin talked about their experiences in the band. A drumbeat joined the guitar and later a synthline. Then at 1:49 seconds into the video, the band gets to the point of the video: Anberlin is breaking up after releasing a new album and giving a final world tour. The video ends by reiterating the upcoming final album and final tour and with a Tooth & Nail Records copyright notice, inadvertently announcing that Anberlin had returned to their first record label to release their final album.  LO

Last month was the first month that I didn’t include an Anberlin song since I started my blog. It also happens to be the month that the band released their eighth studio album, Vega . These facts are related, though my exclusion of Anberlin last month was more of a symptom of the underlying problem than a deliberate exclusion. Anberlin is still my favorite, and skipping one month of them still puts them as my most blogged-about artist. I’ve talked about the choices they’ve made over the years from the break-up to the reunion to the lockdown livestreams to the new music to the indefinite hiatus of frontman Stephen Christian and the joining of Memphis May Fire ’s frontman Matty Mullins . Now the band has entered their Vega era--a chaotic time that guitarist Christian McAlhaney has said in multiple interviews that the band is “making it up as they go.”  I WANT TO BE THE QUIET IN STORMS I SILVERLINE. On the Church Jams Now! Podcast in 2022, the hosts mostly “flopped” Silverline , the E

  Musically,   Underoath ’s most recent record   Voyeurist   pays homage to different points in their 25-year career. On the band’s breakthrough album,   They’re Only Chasing Safety , Underoath experimented with elements not always heard in Metal. One example was including a church choir on the song “ It’s Dangerous Business Walking out Your Front Door .” According to   Tim McTague   on the episode of   Labeled Deep Dives   about today’s song “ Hallelujah ,” the Underoath guitarist said he made up a story about how the 2004 single had religious significance in order to record a youth choir in a church basement. Eighteen years later, the second song on Voyeurist prominently features a choir, this time in the chorus. But unlike “Dangerous,” Underoath had distanced themselves from the Christian music scene.  In an interview with   Loudwire , Tim says that “Hallelujah” is about “struggles with everything – faith, life and so on.”  The presence of a choir on “Hallelujah” and the track’s tit