Haha. It's a bit of an exaggeration. Stephen's voice grounds it, so it still sounds familiar, it just hits the New Mexico theme hard. Oddly, when it's not rocking out, the A&B record it sounds most similar to is probably Felt. You can hear a lot of his older influences coming out, but I think it all works.
Weird but works for me. Think the two singles in context hit for me when they didn’t before. Listened to it 3 times and dig it
haven't spun this yet, but cool his wife is on it. i remember enjoying her vocal harmonies in the chorus of Self-Starter
i like this fine, i think i wish i liked it a little more, but that's how i've always been with a&b stuff
i had a lot of fun with a few songs from SFTLNDH, but a few on there haven't aged as well as Felt and The Quiet Life. wasn't a fan of most of Tension. haven't spun this yet.
after just one listen, I think I enjoyed this...kind of just have to accept leaning into the western feel and when you do it becomes a pretty fun listen
For anyone still on the fence about the vinyl, they have 23 of their split and 72 of the blue one left in stock. A&B doesn’t get repressed so nab one if you want it.
"Time is Cruel" struck me as something that could easily have been an Anberlin track if he stayed with them
I don't know about anyone else, but Forget Love will always be the pinnacle of what this project can achieve. On a personal level, Christian and Marsh have played such a part in my development with their music and that particular song still resonates as good as ever.