Anberlin to Perform at The Cotillion, 10/21; Upcoming Events Announced

ANBERLIN with Atomic Tom, Abandon Kansas, and Dear Departed will perform at The Cotillion on FRI, OCTOBER 21, 2011 at 8:00 PM. Tickets are $15.00 - $17.00 and available at http://www.thecotillion.com/event/59061?utm_source=MEL&utm_medium=2473. All seating is general admission. Table & chair seating is around an open floor. Table reservations for groups of 4 or more are available for an additional charge by calling 316-722-4201.

There are moments in a bands career where you need to get on board or be left behind. Moments where a band makes a great leap forward, surges to the next level, and becomessomething infinitely greater than they've ever been. This is one of those moments for Anberlin, a rock band who has been honing their style and sound since 2002. The band's last album and major label debut, 2008's New Surrender, ascended the Central Florida group to a new level of both popularity and skill. The record's first single "Feel Good Drag" became the No. 1 radio track of 2009 and the No. 30 track of the decade. The positive reception the disc generated set the band up for an even more successful and powerful follow-up. On this fifth album, Dark Is The Way. Light Is A Place, Anberlin found themselves in a new headspace, recharged with creativity following their touring cycle for New Surrender. The band was unsure which producer to use for this effort, but fortuitously that decision was made for them when Grammy-winning producer BrenDan O'Brien (Pearl Jam, Bruce Springsteen) approached the group. O'Brien had followed their career after being alerted to Anberlin by his daughter and felt that this was the right occasion to collaborate with the musicians. 

"The fact that he liked our music and he believed in us and he was standing behind us as a band was huge," Stephen says. "Compared to his roster we're not that big, so having him behind us really bolstered our confidence and pushed our desire to achieve something greater on this record. People have told us they're proud of us, but for BrenDan O'Brien to say it was truly solidifying for us as a band." 

The band recorded the disc over five weeks, on and off throughout March, April and May of this year at Blackbird Studios in Nashville. The process was both challenging and empowering, with O'Brien urging the band members to step out of their comfort zone and take their music to new heights. The resulting album is 10 tracks that resound with a newfound sense of self and an assurance of identity. For more information on Anberlin visit http://www.anberlin.com/home/.

The story of Atomic Tom begins in Brooklyn. The record that is The Moment was recorded over four months in a tiny apartment with the band's close friend, Ben Romans as producer. Microphones were set up in the hallway, the bathtub and the kitchen; amps and empty guitar cases lined the walls, and the vocal booth was a repurposed utility closet. Despite noise complaints, one of them leading to a shutdown by "New York's finest", the LP left the studio dressed in larger-than-life sounds.

Lead vocalist Luke White began writing demos in 2006 with Philip Galitzine on bass, adding guitarist Eric Espiritu in 2007. By early 2009, drummer Tobias Smith completed the circle. "We knew we had the green light," says Luke.

After countless New York area performances, ATOMIC TOM started to hear their lyrics shouted back at them at shows. "We knew the time was right for a full-length record."

From the exhilarating electronica-meets-arena-rock shuffle of "Let Let Go", the epic romanticism of "We Were Never Meant To Be", and the hauntingly delicate "Play That Dirty Girl", ATOMIC TOM'S debut LP demonstrates remarkable musical ability and diversity, married with an innate sense of how to connect with an audience on a grand scale. "It's possible to reach each and every individual in an eighty thousand seat stadium," claims Philip. "You can make an enormous, towering sound and still say something deeply meaningful and musical." They plan to do just that.

Nowhere is this philosophy more evident than on the title track. Says Eric, "whenever we play 'The Moment,' it feels like we somehow all stand up a little straighter. There's something fresh about that particular tune, and yet it also connects to the music we loved growing up. There's a lot of magic on that song." Adds Philip, "'The Moment' took three entire days of pre-production, just kind of summoning the sounds we heard in our heads."

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