My Brother and The Dichotomy of Light and Dark

First and most exciting things first, my brother is now engaged. Good on ya mate

(No idea what that means, but it sounds appropriate).

I spent the last three days in his company driving East so he could propose and do some work related stuff, and it was crazy fun.

I forgot my camera in his car, so the photo that I wanted to attach to this post is still in P.E.I., so I shall simply tell you what it was going to be: Elvis, the tampon of male bonding.

Within the first hour of setting out on our epic adventure, my brother found a stray tampon in the car and attached it to the rear view mirror where it dangled conspicuously for the world to envy.

While not necessarily my favorite moment of the roadtrip, it is one of the few that is a)appropriate and b) actually funny to those who do not know us too well and c) it portrays the sheer inanity of my broski.

We were pulled aside crossing back into Canada for a customs check, and me and my brother got out of the car and sat on a bench giggling about absurd scenarios that could happen. In the midst of our chuckle fest, one of the border guards called my brother over to ask him a few questions.

Here is an excerpt from the conversation:

Border Guard motioning to me: "Who is that?"

Spen: "My brother."

Border Guard: "Does he do drugs?"

Spen: "... I don't think so?"

Bless his heart.

Early on in the roadtrip, my iPod died so we were devoid of any music until day 2 when we stopped at a wal-mart and I picked up Anberlin's new album "Dark is the Way, light is a Place," their 5th full length LP.

Here is an absurdly large photo of the cover of the album. I just love it. It's so thoroughly mature and enigmatic. Works perfectly for the album.

Consisting of 10 tracks and being 40-odd minutes in length, the album, while not spotless, is surprisingly good.

Rather than go on a track by track breakdown of hits and misses, here is the general idea: way too much structure, extremely well-fleshed out lyrics and catchy-yet-complicated music. Up until their 4th album, Anberlin's music tended to blur together; Not so on this record. Each song is distinctive, yet has that elusive cohesive feel of actually being an album and not a collection of singles.

My only real issue with the album is the penultimate track Down. Every time I hear it I think it's either Sleeping Sickness by City and Color, or The Unwinding Cable Car (acoustic) also by Anberlin. Or a weird amalgamation of the two. Plus, the lyrics make reference to burning a town. Yawn. Alexisonfire killed that metaphor back in 2006 with the track 'Mailbox Arson' off of Crisis, and it should really never be brought up in music again.

I guess another issue with the album is the closer, which clocks in at only five and a half minutes, whereas their closers had averaged a length of seven minutes. Pity too, since the refrain would have easily worked over another minute and half of build (You're not a slave/So get off your knees). Lyrically, it feels like part two of Soft Skeletons from New Surrender.

In spite of those issues, and an annoying tendency to have bridges that sputter off into silence only to roar back to life with a hearty chorus, this album is definitely worth buying. There is maturity in absolutely every aspect of this album.