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Anberlin's "New Surrender" Is Out September 30th.

As a huge fan of Anberlin I’ve followed them since Blueprints From The Black Market and was quite surprised to hear that the single from their fourth album, New Surrender, was to be a song off their sophomore release “Never Take Friendship Personal”.

“The Feel Good Drag” has always been a fan favourite but I’ve never been sure of it’s potential as a single and I’m still not entirely convinced after hearing it. This probably won’t get much airplay and I doubt it’ll be the song to push Anberlin into the mainstream like I’m sure the record label is hoping. What I am sure of is that this is an amazing song and they’ve improved it ten-fold.

The intro is pretty awesome but it’s in the verses you’ll hear the most changes. A swirly, epic feeling has been added into the verses and Stephen’s delivery is a lot more subtle before exploding into the nostalgiac “Was this over before?” screams in the chorus.

The guitar work is far greater - be it the production style or band growth the solo screechs across the sound scape.

As a whole the song is essentially the same track it was 4 or so years ago — it’s just a helluva lot more epic.

“But we’ve heard The Feel Good Drag before!” - I hear you scream. And you’d be correct because The Feel Good Drag was one of the tracks on Never Take Friendship Personal. That’s right - the latest Anberlin single is two albums old. I’m not quite sure what the record label/band are thinking of here but if it’s a label decision, it tells me they don’t have much faith in the bands new material which is a bit worrying.

All the same - if the band were to release an old song you would have thought they would have picked one of the better ones. Now don’t get me wrong - I love The Feel Good Drag, but wouldn’t this have been a better track:

Yes that footage was from Breakfast At Tiffany’s. I think I made my point.

The Feel Good Drag hits American radio next month.