Anberlin Band • Page 174

for me, Devotion is like the director's cut of one of your favorite movies. maybe a tad longer than what you expect and not entirely necessary, but full of all those extra scenes that represent an unaltered vision of one's project. definitely my preferred way to listen.

 

I'll take Naive Orleans and God Drugs and Sex over Dance Dance honestly.

Fin is easily the best.

 

justice for Depraved

 

Total opposite for me. Devotion is the overly long album that feels its length. You wished they had cut it down. Vital is incredible. The Devotion exclusive songs aren’t bad, but should have just been their own EP or all put at the end as bonus tracks. Vital flows perfectly. There is no need to change a thing.

 

I'd say behind Fin., Depraved is definitely my next favorite closer. Love the atmosphere on that.

 

Depraved is probably my least favourite.

 

Fin
Modern age (might be no.1 tbh)
dance dance
Nothing more (could climb)
Naive Orleans
Circles
depraved
God drugs and sex
Harbinger

also I don’t really think of devotion as an album. Whenever I put it on I put it on shuffle bc I like almost all of the bonus tracks as much as the rest of the record and there are enough of them that the whole thing just feels more like a playlist. Only 1 or 2 I don’t care for. Let’s take a moment to appreciate though how cool of a release that was. A long EP’s worth of new material and a live performance? Incredible. Didn’t care for the remixes.

 

Why is Modern Age on this list?

 

Sidenote: I love Modern Age. A long time ago someone sold me their Vital handwritten lyrics package, the one with the Vital canvas and book and the lyrics I received were for Modern Age. Great, underrated second-to-last song.

 

Modern Age is so good.

 

i remember there was a brief time period where iTunes accidentally made all of the song previews from Vital public when the preorder went up, so i found a way to save them all, and i listened to that one over and over. one of their best songs.

 

"Modern Age" is quite possibly my favorite Anberlin song.

 

Pretty sure I'll go with one that isn't unique to me and say Dismantle/Repair is my favorite.

 

hot take: Dismantle.Repair. is the best song on Cities and it's not even close

 

Fin, Dismantle, Inevitable, Cable Car and Godspeed are all perfect songs.

 

I don't think that's a hot take.

 

Not a hot take at all, that's just a fact.

 

i know lots of people try to argue for (*Fin) or Cable Car as the best song on Cities, and they're good, but hearing D.R. changed my life, haha.

 

Fantastic songs in their own right that are made better in the context of an album with perfect sequencing. Dismantle.Repair can be singled out for anyone to listen to at any time and it hits just as hard no matter what.

 

I saw Anberlin acoustic around the time DITW came out, and Stephen did an encore of Dismantle.Repair that was just him solo with a keyboard. A really special concert moment for me.

 

alright, best song from each album/release. here's mine:

Blueprints: Glass to the Arson
NTFP: Dance, Dance
Cities: Dismantle.Repair.
New Surrender: Disappear
DITW: Depraved
Vital/Devotion: Self-Starter
Lowborn: Stranger Ways
Silverline: Circles
Convinced: Lacerate

 

Yeah, Dismantle.Repair. is an all timer, easily the best song on that album (and it’s a great album). I can still vividly remember hearing it for the first time on Purevolume.

 

Here's my hot take: (*Fin) is not very good.

 

I don't listen to it outside of the context of the album, but I do think it's a great song.

 

people always hype it up because it's an 8 minute epic to cap off their most successful album, but there are already 4-5 other great closers around the 6-7 minute mark that do it better. that isn't to say it's a bad song though.