We’ve reached the time of year where I begin to put my favorite Anberlin album into heavy rotation. There’s something about the back half of summer that just makes Dark is the Way, Light is a Place sound perfect. It’s an album that marked a sonic change for one of the aughts most revered rock bands, a notion that aligns perfectly with the feelings of coming change that are in the air this time of year.
You can buy or stream Silverline on Apple Music
Over the course of what we thought were the band’s final three albums, Anberlin leaned hard into new territory, experimenting heavily with influences that they had previously sprinkled throughout their nearly bulletproof discography. By the time Lowborn arrived in 2014 as the band’s swan song, I couldn’t help but wish that there was another chapter or two to explore.
But as we’ve come to find in this scene, nothing is ever really over, and Anberlin is no exception. After a smattering of live performances in 2018 and 2019, the band embarked on a livestream series spanning their full catalogue before finally giving fans a taste of new tunes late last year with “Two Graves”. And now, Silverline, the band’s new EP and first proper release in eight years is here.
I’ll sheepishly admit that I wasn’t the biggest fan of “Two Graves” upon its release, but here as the opener to Silverline, the track is kind of perfect. What isn’t quite apparent within each of these tracks alone, is that as a whole, the five songs serve as a fine blend of Anberlin’s past three albums. It’s in the bridge and outro of tracks like “Two Graves” and “Nothing Lost” that you can truly feel the rich textures of sound that the members of Anberlin can so brilliantly build. Credit to Christian McAlhaney and Joseph Milligan for bringing their A-game throughout.
The smooth intro of “Nothing Lost” is everything I’ve been missing from this band. Anberlin have always had a knack for implementing anthemic elements of decades past into their songs, and this song simply soars, particularly once the chorus hits with Stephen Christian singing, “Say nothing is ever gone / Stay here tonight / Stand down, you’re never lost / On the right path, wrong road”. By the time the bridge arrives, the rest of the band is ready to bring the house down.
Perhaps it’s because of this opening one-two punch that the next track, “Body Language”, seems like a slight letdown. It’s a stark change of pace and tone that continues into “Asking”. In a recent interview with Chorus.fm, Christian mentioned that two Silverline tracks were originally Anchor & Braille songs that were held back because he “heard them sonically and lyrically as Anberlin.” It’s easy to see the connection, although the back half of “Asking” begins to crescendo into something familiar to the best parts of Lowborn.
Silverline’s final track, “Circles” is classic Anberlin closer material, full of energy, emotion and a well-deserved sonic payoff that leaves you wanting more. If we’re lucky, maybe this is a new beginning for a band that never really felt like it was ready to call it quits in the first place. For nearly two decades, Anberlin has been a mainstay in a rock scene that felt like its walls couldn’t quite hold what the band was capable of building. Silverline is a worthy new entry into a catalogue full of delightful and unexpected twists and turns.
4/5
by Kiel Hauck
Kiel Hauck is the editor in chief at It’s All Dead. Over the past decade, he has been a contributor for multiple pop culture outlets and was previously an editor at PopMatters. Kiel currently resides in Indianapolis, IN with his wife, daughter, and their imaginary pet, Hand Dog. You can follow him on Twitter.
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