It’s a shame the rest of Anberlin’s fourth album ‘New Surrender’ couldn’t match the punch of opener ‘The Resistance’, for despite plenty of androgynous vocals and soaring choruses, the rest of this record feels a little antiseptic.

Rather predictably, the backbone is post-hardcore painting by numbers. ‘Breaking’ has all the hallmarks: soft, acoustic intro; overwrought, over-thought lyrics; and a distorted yet powerless power chord climax. Despite a cracking squalling opening riff, ‘Feel Good Drag’ soon darts into similar territory, the shouted excess of its apex disproving its own emotion.

Where this album is most interesting is when Anberlin step outside their comfort zone. It doesn’t always work, but there’s sufficient variety to suggest some aspiration to mix things up.

‘Retrace’, for instance, opens like a Razorlight cover. Yes, you read that right, Razorlight. ‘Breathe’ sounds like a boy band Christmas ballad and perhaps most alarmingly, ‘Burn Out Brighter (Northern Lights)’ and  ‘Disappear’ both sound as though Alison Moyet’s been asked to pen a Rocky theme tune.

As with all of the band’s output, the album is littered with religious references, though as before, this tends to feel incidental. That may be because the muffled cacophony of the chorus lines and the more general post-hardcore recipe of melodrama, cliché and self-loathing already mimics the must-haves of religious devotion. Either way, it’s not a reason to avoid this record, just as it’s not a reason to buy it.

No doubt this sort of heresy will have the band’s loyal legions arming themselves with sharpened crucifixes and skewering some 2D effigy of New Noise, which is a little unfair, because we’re full of admiration for Anberlin’s ambition, if not for the results. They remain a band we’re tempted to loath but end up grudgingly liking, if not, this time around, to the point where we’ll vote them into our