One day while browsing for new bands at one of my favorite music stores Bullmoose Music I eyed this c.d.
Never Take Friendship Personal 
The cover was cool! The price was right! The thirst for a new band was present! I bought it! I loved it! Such a simple story for finding this band actually opened the door for something deeper and more revelatory in my musical journey!
It is both unfair and necessary to
Anberlin to bring up their spiritual presence in their music. It's unfair because they are on par and above many other bands musically that I know and they should stand on their own for that alone. It's necessary to expel on the matter though because it's an element of who they are as a band and the way they have approached is one huge element of why I hold them as an important band in my musical journey.
My experience with Christian/Spiritual music was horrid at it's worst and lukewarm at best! I remember cringing at singing anything in church. I spent more time trying not to laugh during
Jesus Loves Me than God may be able to forgive me for!
The best word for those hymns was hokey. When it came to Christian bands in the secular aspect of music I wanted to vomit at the saccharine sweetness of
Bob Carlisle, Thought
Amy Grant was the equivalent of a shitty Hallmark card and for the "bands" that were Christian "rock" I wanted to give myself a lobotomy due "to the amateur paint by numbers copycat playing and beat you over the head in case you were to stupid to realize we love Jesus unless we tell you in the most straight forward dumbed down way possible" nature of the bands!
In college I had a group of Jesus ummmm.... devotees
as friends and they would play popular Christian Pop rock groups like
The Newsboys and
Jars of Clay. Lukewarm was the only thing to say about that. When I moved to Rhode Island I met a guy who only bought music that was Christian rock oriented! I said screw it and borrowed a whole binder of c.d.s from him. Out of that whole binder I found minute potential at most. Bands like
Skillet,
Kutless and early
Relient K showed that they wanted to be something more but they still lacked anything that defined them as anything more than a cut and paste version of popular bands with Christian text inserted.
Then things started happening. Slowly! I'll leave the obvious influence of
Creed out and touch upon another factor I believe aided in the growth of Christian based music into the secular world.
I attribute a big change to the
Evanescence controversy. When they came out before making it huge with their major label debut Fallen they had beginnings as a band that was sold in Christian Rock Outlets. For a period the
Fallen c.d. was sold in those outlets. This was until
Evanescence was outed for this and they retracted the fact that they would fall under the Christian banner of music. After this there was a backlash and the Christian community stopped selling their c.d.s and spoke out about
Evanescence's betrayal to their roots. Regardless of this ridiculous issue I think this spawned a change in the industry.
Evanescence proved that with quality music and songwriting a band that has a spiritual aspect to their music could sell to the masses.
Soon bands like
P.O.D.,
Lifehouse and later
Switchfoot with a spiritual message helped kick down the doors without anyone knowing that they were listening to a band that was touching upon themes that used to be limited to a certain section of the music community.
In my opinion, this was just as much a maturation in songwriting and a growth of talent as a marketing ploy. Business is business after all but as result thankfully we had bands writing about faith that related to the world itself and people as humans who were susceptible to flaws and mistakes. No longer did it preach but instead it acknowledged a struggle with faith as a part of life as well. Finally, we had songwriting that came from a spiritual place that people could relate to regardless of which denomination they partook in or even if they had no faith at all. The music wove human qualities into the music and finally spoke to them instead of shouting at them.
So after all this, even though I'd bought music by some of the previously mentioned bands it was buying that c.d. in the Bullmoose shop that broke open the floodgates for an open mindedness towards the spiritual theme in music! After this I stumbled across some of my favorite bands/artist like
Blindside,
Mae,
Further Seems Forever,
Acceptance,
Waking Ashland,
Mat Kearney,
The Almost,
Flyleaf,
Jon McLaughlin,
Mindy Smith,
The Afters,
The Honorary Title and
Jackson Waters. Also recent albums by
Switchfoot and
Relient K have blown me away!
So after this history that leads me to specifically what makes this band a favorite of mine? What did I like about
Anberlin itself that lead me to do a 360 on what I perceive as bands worthy of checking out? Stay tuned for part 2 dealing with the band itself!
Anberlin (Official Thread) 
Linear Mode
