Anberlin

Winter Haven, and what came before the name

Anberlin began as a second act. The musicians who would form it were playing in a punk band called SaGoh 24/7 from 1998, releasing two albums under that name before deciding the sound no longer fitted. The rebuilt group took the name Anberlin in 2002 in Winter Haven, Florida — Stephen Christian on lead vocals, Joseph Milligan on guitar, Deon Rexroat on bass and Nathan Young on drums. Christian McAlhaney joined as rhythm guitarist in 2007 and has been there ever since, longer now than several of the eras he was hired into.

Tooth & Nail Records put out the debut, Blueprints for the Black Market, in 2003. The follow-up, Never Take Friendship Personal, arrived in 2005 and peaked at No. 144 on the Billboard 200 — a modest number that badly understates what the record became. It is the album the band are still built around twenty-one years later, and the one they are currently playing front to back on tour.

The major-label decade

Cities (2007) was the first Anberlin album to reach the Billboard 200's top twenty. It also marked the move to Universal Republic, and the major-label years produced the band's widest reach: New Surrender (2008) peaked at No. 13, their highest chart placing, and the re-recorded single Feel Good Drag went to No. 1 on the Alternative Songs chart after twenty-nine weeks on it — a slow, stubborn climb rather than an overnight hit, and still the band's biggest single by some distance.

Dark Is the Way, Light Is a Place followed in 2010 and Vital in 2012. Then the band went back to Tooth & Nail for Lowborn (2014), which they announced as the last one. Anberlin disbanded in 2014 after a farewell tour, at a point when most of their peers were either still grinding or quietly fading; the decision to stop deliberately, and to say so, is part of why the return mattered.

The reunion came in late 2018, initially for performances, with new recording resuming from 2020. A run of live albums documenting older shows filled the gap. In 2022 the band signed to Equal Vision Records, where they remain.

The singer question

In October 2023 Stephen Christian announced an indefinite hiatus from touring with Anberlin, citing family and his work as a full-time pastor. Matty Mullins of Memphis May Fire stepped in as live vocalist. What was framed as a stand-in arrangement has hardened: as of 2026 Christian is no longer listed as a member in the band's official press materials, and Mullins is named as the vocalist in the current five-piece alongside McAlhaney, Milligan, Rexroat and Young.

Mullins is not a hired outsider so much as a fan who got the job. He has spoken about being an Anberlin obsessive as a teenager, to the point of wearing an Anberlin shirt in his high-school yearbook photograph, and reviewers have noted that the enthusiasm reads on stage.

His first studio appearance with the band was on two tracks of Vega, released in 2024 on Equal Vision — a small, cautious introduction rather than a handover.

Nevertake: rebuilding the record that built them

On 21 March 2025 the band released Nevertake, a complete re-recording of Never Take Friendship Personal marking the album's twentieth year, with Mullins singing every track. The arrangements stay close to the 2005 versions but are not straight copies: Mullins adds screams to the title track and to A Feel Good Drag, The Runaways carries electronic textures that were not on the original, and McAlhaney plays the parts originally recorded by Nathan Strayer, the band's late guitarist.

Reception split along the line one would expect. V13's review treated the record as a gesture toward the audience rather than a commercial move — "not simply a recording, but a tribute to their fans, old and new" — while acknowledging that longtime listeners remain divided about the lineup change itself. That division has not gone away, and the band have not pretended otherwise.

Currency, due 11 November 2026

The ninth studio album, Currency, is scheduled for 11 November 2026 on Equal Vision Records. It runs to eleven tracks and is the first full-length with Mullins as lead vocalist throughout. The band produced it with Kellen McGregor of Memphis May Fire.

Mullins has described the record's subject plainly: "The overall theme of CURRENCY is what happens after everything you built your identity on falls apart" — a run through heartbreak, loss, addiction and shame before anything resolves. Two singles have landed so far. Neverafter came first, with a video directed by drummer Nathan Young alongside Jacob Moniz. Gravity followed; Mullins said it is "about coming to terms with the fact that our time here is limited and choosing to live in a way that leaves nothing unsaid."

Other named tracks include Highstakes — already in the live set well ahead of the album — and Trenches, a collaboration with Switchfoot, which doubles as a neat piece of scheduling given who Anberlin are on the road with this autumn.

Autumn 2026: two tours at once

The band spent the first half of 2026 on the Never Take Friendship Personal 20th Anniversary Tour, playing club and theatre dates — The Pyrle in Greensboro on 29 May with Emery and Watashi Wa, Barnato in Omaha on 24 May, Club LA in Destin on 14 May, The Castle Theatre in Bloomington, Illinois on 8 June — interspersed with festival slots including the Vans Warped Tour at the RFK Stadium grounds in Washington, DC on 13 June and Warped's Mexico City date at the Autódromo Hermanos Rodríguez on 12 September.

September has been dense. After Mexico City the band played Frederik Meijer Gardens Amphitheater in Grand Rapids on the 16th, then a short east-coast run: Bottle & Cork in Dewey Beach on the 18th, Elevation 27 in Virginia Beach on the 19th, The National in Richmond on the 20th, Eulogy in Asheville on the 21st and Charleston Music Hall on the 22nd.

Running through and beyond that is Switchfoot's Forever Now Tour, announced in May 2026 — thirty-eight dates opening on 17 September in Fort Wayne, Indiana and closing on 21 November in Seattle, with Anberlin billed as special guest on most of them and Fuel and Lit on selected others. Tickets went on general sale through Ticketmaster on 15 May. It is a large-room tour by the standards of the past few years, and it puts Currency in front of Switchfoot's audience three weeks after release.