It was as though I was listening to two different bands on Anberlin’s New Surrender. Half the album sounds like the band’s hit song “Feel Good Drag“: post-hardcore/emo songs along the lines of Jimmy Eat World or Yellowcard. The other half of New Surrender is surprisingly cheerful, as though the band got tired of sulking halfway through recording this album. “Retrace,” “Younglife” and “Breathe” reminds you of the band’s Christian roots, being hopeful, inspirational sermonizing ballads. Anberlin even recalls the likes Eddie Money, Wang Chung and other pop rockers from the 80s on “Haight Street,” a feel-good song about kids “old enough to know, but too young to care” going out to town at night.
The main problem with New Surrender is that it’s just not really exciting. Most of these songs last around 3 minute long, with a radio-friendly audience in mind. In turn, there is very little attempt to innovate or experiment. The emo songs aren’t offensive or annoying, but it’s no different from other emo songs we heard before; there’s nothing significant that I can point out from the tracks “The Resistance,” “Breaking” and “Disappear” other than that they’re neither awful or great. Of these emo songs, only “Feel Good Drag” is hard-hitting and exciting enough to be noticeable. The cheerful songs, while a welcomed change from all the emoting, come off as a little too sugary. “Miserabile Visu (Ex Malo Bonum)” is the only time where Anberlin actually does something really experimental, a 6 minute track that builds from quiet synthesizers into a soaring epic featuring an impressive guitar solo. For a band that was named after background noises in Radiohead’s “Everything In Their Right Place,” you’d think Anberlin would be a little more dangerous than New Surrender.
Grade: 6/10
Outside The Aggregator 