Seattle's Tooth & Nail has developed a reputation as the home for positive-thinking, hookalicious pop-punk and alternative combos, many sporting fancy haircuts and a Christian-influenced worldview. Anberlin fits this mold. Led by the soaring, slightly froggy-voiced vocals of Stephen Christian, the band also includes Joseph Milligan (guitar), Nathan Young (drums), Joey Bruce (guitar), and Deon Rexroat (bass). Blueprints for the Black Market features 11 songs buffed to a gleaming finish by producer Aaron Sprinkle, ex of Christian punkers Poor Old Lu. While it accesses the earnestness of emo through a side door, Blueprints removes punk and hardcore from the equation entirely. Some songs feature dynamics evocative of these genres ("Naďve Orleans," the post-hardcore stylings of "Glass to the Arson"), but those same tracks are cleaned up with electronic programming or lush chorus vocals that are much closer to bland alternative pop/rock. The bopping "Foreign Language" marries the yearning of Cutting Crew to a post-/p>
ew wave beat, but a song later Anberlin is channeling the grandiose proto-metal of Tool, albeit without that group's slithering underbelly. This obviousness doesn't do Blueprints for the Black Market any favors. It's such a glimmering recording, and the songs are so minutely arranged to represent a particular sound, that the album ends up becoming an utterly pleasant bore. Christian and his cohorts turn in some determined performances, but they lack any definition. A preening cover of the Cure's "Love Song" doesn't help matters.
Okay it's break and my moms intent on getting me up early as fucking ever. SIGH fucking SIGH...anyway while I was watching Nightline (I think) ABC or whichever channel it was had to go and interrupt my programming damnit to tell me that Gerald Ford died. Its sad this year we've seemed to have lost a good handful of people...lemme see if I can list the ones that come to mind (or rather those tha...
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you would think that working in a store that mainly deals in music, an audiophile such as myself would have no problem spending all my hard-earned cash. this is not always true! sometimes I just don't know what I feel like and therefore spend my money on other things (gasp!) such as rent and groceries and maybe a good pair of shoes. but really usually scarves and wallets. so anyway, I decid...
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you would think that working in a store that mainly deals in music, an audiophile such as myself would have no problem spending all my hard-earned cash. this is not always true! sometimes I just don't know what I feel like and therefore spend my money on other things (gasp!) such as rent and groceries and maybe a good pair of shoes. but really usually scarves and wallets. so anyway, I decid...
More >
Okay it's break and my moms intent on getting me up early as fucking ever. SIGH fucking SIGH...anyway while I was watching Nightline (I think) ABC or whichever channel it was had to go and interrupt my programming damnit to tell me that Gerald Ford died. Its sad this year we've seemed to have lost a good handful of people...lemme see if I can list the ones that come to mind (or rather those tha...
More >
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 "Blueprints for the Black Market")
