Anberlin
February 1, 2005
Tooth & Nail
Never Take Friendship Personal
The CD starts with its title track. The loud and energetic rocker is a good song and connects with the band’s previous work perfectly. The energy and body of guitar work makes this a great live song and the energy opens this album in good spirits.
Paperthin Hymn
Paperthin Hymn is a very interesting song with strong lyrics and great vocals. The changes in tempo and loudness make for a superb build up and the vocals go from very melodic to almost screamo and back, while the drums keep the beat perfectly. Paperthin Hymn shows this band has grown and got even better.
Stationary Stationary
This is a pretty straight-forward rock song, which is good to hear once in awhile. A good song doesn’t need all kinds of fancy effects and strange things everywhere. Anberlin performs this song with passion and the uptempo, energetic rock song shows another strength of this band, to write and play catchy rock songs very convincingly.
(The Symphony Of) Blasé
Anberlin goes on a melodic tour with Blasé but the song sounds a little forced and though the vocals are excellent, and musically the band does a decent job, the song doesn’t really convince. The song does get better along the way, but it’s not really one of the band’s best songs.
A Day Late
The energy is back on this extremely uptempo song. It is also quite catchy and well-performed. It probably has the ability to become a fan favorite during live shows, but on the album it’s not really coming to its full potential. It’s not a bad song, pretty good actually, but Anberlin can do better.
The Runaways
The Runaways is flat out one of the better alt-rockers of the last year. The guitar work is amazing and has some killer hooks later in the song. The angsty, crystal clear vocals are perfectly timed and the band works together like a charm. The song has the right amount of passion and energy to keep the listener interested throughout the whole song. Probably the best track on “NTFP”.
Time & Confusion
Not really one of my favorites, but Anberlin shows their creativity and musically this song is a fairly good one. For an alternative song this has pretty good commercial appeal, as it has a catchy chorus and some good hooks and invites to rock out and shout along.
The Feel Good Drag
One of the better songs on the album. Vocally it could be improved a little maybe, and here and there the song could use a little polishing, but in itself this catchy rock song has everything to become a rock hit.
Audrey, Start The Revolution!
Anberlin’s pushing Audrey a little too hard, so the revolution never really starts. Not musically at least. I’m pretty sure this song would do great during live shows, and the chorus is extremely catchy and I can’t get it out of my head even if I would want to, but at times it sounds a little forced and uninspired.
A Heavy Hearted Work Of Staggering Genius
This musical interlude is an interesting touch on this interesting album.
Dance, Dance, Christa Paffgen
One of the best tracks on this album is the album closer. It has great energy and might do really well on rock radio if the band decides to release it in that format. The vocals are excellent and the tempo changes and guitar work are top notch. I’m impressed with the impeccable timing in this song and the build-up of the song is also well done. Dance, dance is definitely something you’d wanna do on this song.
On “Never Take Friendship Personal”, Anberlin shows the same kind of talent and promise as on its predecessor. The band did grow, as we can hear on songs like Paperthin Hymn, The Runaways & Dance, Dance.. but not as much as one might have hoped. But on this album and especially during live shows this band shows so much talent there is definitely a way to major success for Anberlin.