After twelve years and seven albums the Anberlin wall is finally crumbling; they are bidding farewell to that distinctive sound of theirs, cocking elusive smiles and leaving us with a parting ten-track gift named Lowborn.
From Never Take Friendship Personal to The Resistance, it’s an Anberlin tradition to begin every album at its energetic, distortion-laden peak. This instalment’s opener is We Are Destroyer, a title that tells you immediately that they weren’t planning on changing their strategy so late in the game.
The rock is rampant throughout but it’s not all guns and poses. Within there are smatterings of the airiness so characteristic of modern indie and there is ample mellowness artfully constructed to offset the aggression. Stranger Ways, with its typically arthouse film clip, is sombre and dramatic although lacking a discernible melody. Atonement has more of the electronic tinge the band have been slowly leaning towards over the last few albums. Harbinger may not be the nine minute dance-pop epic expected as an Anberlin album final track but it represents the moody build-to-nothing song format that the band familiarised themselves well with over their career.
If you don’t know Anberlin, listen to any one of their songs and you will quickly see if they’re for you. They have their sound, and haven’t really departed from it on their final outing. Despite their occasional association with bands like 30 Seconds to Mars and Taking Back Sunday, there is an elegance about their music, but there is also a predictability, and basically it’s for teenagers and Christians. Lowborn is a suitable final waltz.
BY MATHEW DROGEMULLER
Best Track: We Are Destroyer
If You Like These, You’ll Like This: RELIENT K, EMERY, SWITCHFOOT
In A Word: Expected
