New Surrender

To begin, I am a huge fan of Anberlin, having first heard 'em in 2004 and never growing tired of any of their songs despite listening to them a tremendous number of times. I own each of their CDs and am never let down by the consistency of quality they achieve. With that said, I felt like my personal affinity for each album had been diminishing: I was by far the most fond of Blueprints for the Black Market, and almost as big of a fan of Never Take Friendship Personal... and a pretty good fan of Cities (but just not on the same level as their first two releases). With that said, I purchased this CD expecting about the same thing as I got with Cities, and assuming everyone's jabbering about the swap to a major record label was senseless and irrational; Anberlin's still Anberlin, and it's good they're surviving in what can't possibly be an easy age for musicians what with downloads and all... Turns out the assumption about the record label meaning not much was exactly correct, but my expectation for a CD on par with Cities (IMO) was pretty far off...

New Surrender is fantastic!

There's a pretty wide array of songs on the CD, but I will say the finishing track is just as good - though different - as the beloved Dance, Dance Christa Päffgen, which is quite impressive in my book. "Blame Me! Blame Me!" is probably my personal favorite, though I don't see many others advocating this thought so perhaps I am fairly strange. Regardless, if you consider yourself an Anberlin fan and you're not looking for something *exactly* congruous to Blueprints or Never Take Friendship Personal (this disc IS a bit more... rock-ish(?), just as Cities was)... this is a must-buy.

What I like about Anberlin is I can count on their music to not go to extremes. I have followed their entire career and New Surrender is great - there isn't one song I have to push past.

"I can finally breath. Suddenly Alive. I can finally move. What it feels to be revived." Anberlin's follow up to their ground breaking album "Cities" is a nostalgic album with catchy lines, heart rocking themes similar to "Never Take Friendship personal." The songs are generally beat and uplifting as Christian tries to break out of the recycling of old lyrics, to taking on the persona of another person.

Song's like Height St., Young Life, recount fun filled teenage nights. Disappear, Blame Blame Blame, and The Resistance are the familiar edgy songs of Anberlin.

Feel Good Drag, from "NTFP" is an upgraded version. Guitar rifts , drums, and sound better and tighter. But, the song was made more radio friendly by taking out the scream at the climax. The song comes off of less emotional and angry.

All and all the album ends in a powerful note and pushes Anberlin's lyrics with religious overtones to a new level. A great follow up to Cities. Buy it!

Its way too easy to critique a band by saying their earlier stuff was better; unfortuantely, the cliche seems fitting this time. I say this in the context that the new project, notably the later half, has some fantastic and original pop like stand outs, i.e. Burn Out Brither, Breathe, Haight Street and Young Life. Additionally the album holds a lighter sound that Anberlin needed to pursue as previous albums have been extraordinarily gloomy. However, the thematic elements of nearly all but two of the songs (Burn Out Brighter and Breathe) have been explored previously by the band. These themes include, lost love, throwing caution to the wind to chase young love, forgotten memories (familial or relational), addiction, and ad dark story song. (Where have we seen this before??? Cities *cough* Cities). I sincerely believe that New Surrender is simply the lighter and brighter version of Cities. With that said, the album is worth the purchase to see where the band is going musically.

I started listening to Anberlin about a year before Cities was released. My brother introduced me and I was intrigued by the rock sound and their lyrics. Cities was an amazing album, and would be pretty much impossible to surpass.

New Surrender is a great CD, though I think some of their songs are a little more "pop-py" than I'm used to. Even so, there's a good mix of sounds in there. "The Resistance" and "Disappear" are their usual harder songs, while "Breaking", "Blame Me! Blame Me!", "Younglife", "Burn Out Brighter" and "Haight Street" are more pop-py. "Breathe" and "Soft Skeletons" are two of my favorites on the album, topped only by "Miserabile Visu" - ending their CD in their usual fashion. It's a beautiful song in every way.

The CD has grown on me since I've got it, and I think I enjoy it more everytime I listen to it. Anberlin fans won't be disappointed, and I can't wait until they release their next CD.