ANBERLIN Lowborn (2014) CD

Every band that burns bright enough eventually has to write a farewell record. Anberlin's Lowborn is a good one, a proper send-off from a band that spent a decade making alternative rock with more emotional weight than the genre usually allows.

Released in 2014 as their seventh and final studio album, Lowborn finds the Florida five-piece leaning into a darker, more atmospheric sound than their earlier work. The hooks are still there but they hit differently when you know it's the last time. Stephen Christian was never a typical frontman and this record proves it, somewhere between post-hardcore urgency and something that sits closer to atmospheric alternative. If you came through the mid-2000s scene and never quite left, this one belongs in the collection.

Standard CD. USA pressing, 2014.

Fans of: Emery, Armor for Sleep, Blindside, Hawthorne Heights