I listened to it today too, i often think it’s my favorite/their best. Should be a scene classic imo, really underrated and i feel like the scene should’ve taken to the heavy synth better than they did. Devotion is so good as a whole too.
Yeah I realised I enjoy Vital more than Cities when relistening to all these albums for the brackets. So good.
Vital is great and easily their best post Cities album but it's still not quite up to Cities or NTFP level for me. Plus I never liked the additional Devotion songs at all.
I think Cities is their best album as a whole. However, to me the mixing don't sound that good, especially on songs like Godspeed. The mixing is so much better on Vital, and it has some great songs that I like better than many songs on Cities. Little Tyrants is an absolute killer, and could just be my favorite hard track of theirs.
Lowborn is my favorite post-Cities album, but I love Vital. I feel like it's the proper follow-up to Cities that fans had wanted for so long. It may even be the "best" Anberlin record on a purely musical level, but Cities and Lowborn speak to me more (and they're more dynamic).
FGD takes it over disappear! Onto DITWLIAP! Disappear: 8 Feel Good Drag: 11 NEVER TAKE BRACKETS PERSONAL: THE ANBERLIN BRACKET TOURNAMENT Good evening everyone and welcome to Chorus's next iteration of the discography bracket challenges. It is my pleasure to host a bracket for yet another of my all time favorite bands and I’m excited to see how this shakes out. Quick review: these are randomly generated brackets (no seeding!) to determine a winner for each album, which will then face off in a Champions bracket to decide the best overall Anberlin song! Rules: 1. Voting over a 10-24 hour period, depending on closeness and how busy i am that day lolz. 2. You must vote on every match in a round; ill only vote in the event of a tie. I am, however, generous with giving my opinions. 3. Please discuss your choices; don’t give the anti-bracketers ammo! 4. Byes may be necessary. These are randomly generated; I do not pick them. 5. Counted votes are signified by me 'liking' your post; no vote changes. Choose wisely! A word from the wise: People change in the brackets. Oh find the best song if you can. But be very wary, you might just lose yourself along the way. ANBERLIN FACE OFF: DARK IS THE WAY, LIGHT IS A PLACE ----- Round 1 1) Down Vs. Take Me (As You Found Me) 2) Impossible (acoustic) Vs. All We Have 3) You Belong Here Vs. Depraved 4) The Art Of War Vs. I’d Like To Die 5) Impossible Vs. Closer 6) Hell Or High Water Vs. Pray Tell Round 2 Winner of 1 Vs. To The Wolves Winner of 4 Vs. We Owe This To Ourselves
Take Me (As You Found Me) Impossible (acoustic) You Belong Here The Art Of War 5) Impossible Pray Tell
Take Me (As You Found Me) Impossible (acoustic) You Belong Here The Art Of War (super hard match up!) Impossible Pray Tell
Take Me (As You Found Me) Impossible (acoustic) You Belong Here The Art of War Closer Pray Tell Closer is my favorite song on this album. I don't care what anyone says. It was the first post-Cities Anberlin song to give me those same amazing chills. Sure it's repetitive, but it's one of the most massive sounding songs in their whole discography. Also, the Down/Take Me match up was TOUGH.
Take Me (As You Found Me) Impossible (acoustic) Depraved I’d Like To Die Impossible Pray Tell Sad that Impossible and Closer were matched up. Probably my two favourite here, alongside Take Me As You Found Me. I like this album.
Take Me (As You Found Me) All We Have You Belong Here Art of War Impossible Pray Tell That was harder than I expected, I forgot how solid the album is. This would have been easier with To The Wolves and We Owe This To Ourselves in the first round since they are my least favorite on the album.
Take Me (As You Found Me) All We Have Depraved The Art of War Impossible Pray Tell I love Closer, but ultimately had to go with Impossible.
Take Me (As You Found Me) All We Have Depraved The Art of War Impossible ( it's close but Impossible's chorus and bridge are crazy strong so that wins it) Hell Or High Water (This was really difficult. Pray Tell is a really good song, but I love Hell Or High Water and I feel like it should have made the album.) The first 4 were really easy and the last 2 were really tough.
Dark is really underrated. I know it's not exactly what everyone wanted from them and Vital was kind of a return to that but Dark is some of their tightest songwriting imo
Dark is different than what I was expecting for sure, and overall my third least favorite (behind New Surrender and Blueprints), but it was a welcome departure from the things that I didn't like about New Surrender.