For Anberlin, a Florida-based alternative rock band, the past few months have also been spent in the studio working on their fourth studio album titled A New Surrender. "We finished it about a month ago in Los Angeles with Neil Avaron," lead singer Stephen Christian said. "It will be out September 30."

After working with producer Aaron Sprinkle for the past three albums, Anberlin decided to go in a different direction with Avaron, known for his work with Yellowcard and Fall Out Boy.

"We just feel like we hit a glass ceiling...we just thought, we can go back with Aaron, but we were too afraid to make the same record. I mean, no one wants to buy Cities again... We felt like going with Neil because he had the rock side. He did the Wallflowers records, but then again, he did Fall Out Boy, so we kind of felt we had the best of both worlds," Christian said.

Christian said the band spent three and a half months on New Surrender, as opposed to the four and a half weeks the band spent recording their last release, Cities. "It's just done to where every song is meticulous. You know, why is that line in there? Why is that melody line in there? Does it have a purpose in being in there? It's just a lot of stuff we wanted to do previously on records that we never got a chance to because we were always in a time crunch," Christian said.

In those three and a half months of production, there was almost no down time. "Man, we've never worked so hard. It's not like we had free time where we just sat around. Nose to the grind. There was one song; I had to rewrite every word, every melody line 17 times, all the way. And still, it didn't even make it on the record. That's how meticulous it is," Christian said.

Anberlin realizes the importance of their fans and runs several different contests and meet and greets to get to know them and get their opinions. "We did this awesome thing where we went on our message board and asked people anywhere within the New York area to come and hang out. We didn't tell them what it was for or anything. Well, the 12 people got to go downtown to Universal Republic and go into the building and sit by themselves and listen to the entire record, front to back. It was really cool. We called and said, ‘Hey, thanks for coming and stuff like that,'" Christian said.

They also asked them what they thought the first single off "Never Surrender" should be.

"They really wanted "Feel Good Drag" [from their second disc Never Take Friendship Personal] as the first single, because we redid a song off Never Take Friendship Personal that we felt like it never really got a chance to be anything because it was a small label. We thought, ‘Man, that could be a big song, but no one's had the chance to hear it.' So, we listened to them, and our vote was ‘Feel Good Drag' as the first single," Christian said.

He says it is still up in the air, though. "Everybody has their opinion. The record label says one thing, Neil says another thing, and we want another thing. I think it's going to come down to the label, because they have the money and we don't. They own our souls," he said, laughing.

Their album will hit stores September 30 and they will be touring overseas and across the United States in support of it. | Katie Herring

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