Reviewed by Cecilia Pattison-Levi
Release date: 11 November 2026
Anberlin consider life’s ‘exchange’ on their ninth studio album, Currency. The concepts of personal development, identity, change and what happens after everything you have built falls apart, as “Hell is something homegrown that you can’t see from inside” and only “pain will tell the truth”, are explored in the eleven-track album. The album is full of emotion and the music follows the lyrical chaos with powerful drums, pulsing bassline thrums, soaring guitars and warm vocals that draw you in but cut like glass. The record also encircles Anberlin’s past and provides a pathway forward into the band’s future, proving that growth and reinvention can exist without sacrificing the band’s unmistakable identity.
The important change for fans of both Memphis May Fire and Anberlin is: Currency features Matty Mullins as the full-time lead vocalist and Kellen McGregor is the producer. They join Anberlin’s other band members, drummer Nathan Young, bassist Deon Rexroat, and guitarists Joseph Milligan and Christian McAlhaney, to deliver and reshape the band’s new songs and soundscape.
The album opens with an urgent and blistering start with ‘Neverafter’. It’s a slick, high-energy emotive pop-rock song with a very catchy radio-friendly chorus. The song is compact with that distinctive mid-2010s sound full of immediate guitar melody lines, vocal hooks, emotional clarity and polished instrumentation. The sharp and grungy ‘Gravity’ blasts with its drums to deliver another high-energy pop-punk song. This song will “hold you hostage” with its great vocals and awesome guitar riffs, with an almost full-on guitar solo near the end, but not quite. ‘Highstakes’ follows with its punchy percussion in the rolling drums, controlled guitars and, lyrically, a song that deals with the pain of a relationship ending due to deception. “If love's the game / bet on betrayal”. The imagery utilises gambling metaphors: “Deal the dealer, or play the player / Two-faced, well played / High stakes, heartbreak” and “Chips are down, I found you out / Called your bluff, you doubled down”.
Then, the lovely bassline riff leads in “always chasing” the ‘Ghost’. Lyrically, a “beating heart inside my chest is loud enough to wake the dead” never finds the quiet as the pop-punk tension rises with the vocals and the drum’s insistent beat reflects the heartbeat. It’s a rock ballad about the forgiveness of personal sins and trying to discover self-worth. The deep bassline returns to underscore ‘Medicate’ as the search for salvation in the ‘wreckage’ of a failing relationship continues within the classic alternative rock soundscape. This song cycle is completed with the emotionally resonant ‘Trenches’ that features the rock band Switchfoot. Lyrically, the song uses trench warfare imagery about seeking salvation from the “world that you trust” as it “burns down” and offers solidarity and support: “when you're fighting for your life / I will meet you in the trenches”. The song is sure to be a big hit with rock fans as the melodies, with the warm vocal harmonies, layered acoustic and electric guitar work, and the lyrical world it discusses speak to the times we are living in, as it is framed from the perspective of someone who has survived it.
The distorted guitars underscore ‘Aftermath’ until the pop-punk soundscape explodes into a huge chorus. “The sharpest knife in an open wound” and a “broken hourglass and a waste of sand” are great lines that describe the pain of living and what happens in recovery as “show me you are near me” as there is a reckoning to “find a way” to move forward. The guitar solo in this song is terrific. It is then back to the “weakness” in ‘Relapse’. The song is huge emotive pop-punk about the “loss of control” and not “letting go” because “deadly dreamers” are ‘believers’ who cannot see reality clearly. The relationship they are in is toxic and repeating it is obviously a bad idea. Just “let it rest in pieces”.
The song ‘Displace’ is about the sticks and stones “home” of the heart. The pop-punk explodes around its destruction like the nursery rhyme. The wolf “lights the match” and watches it burn. The skittering bassline, sharp guitar riff and strong drumbeats “draw the line” of ‘Lies’. The strong guitar riffs and melodies encompass the emotional turmoil of the “demons in disguise” and “vices” that haunt as ties are cut. The very long and beautiful acoustic rock ballad ‘Ashes’ closes the album with the idea that the “end of me is you”. The foundation of life was built out of “matches” and “paper mâché” as it burns down the relationship “house”. The picture “that tells the story” of relationship death and the ghost that can no longer “dance around in the ashes” as life has burnt down. The guitar solo and drum work in this song is impressive. The way the song fades out, mirroring the soft start, is also sonically beautifully conceived, with the repeated words of “casket”, “ashes”, “ghost” and “you’ll stay, I’ll go” providing a powerful and poignant end.
Anberlin’s album Currency keeps the flame of soaring alternative rock melodies with heavier, grungy and reflective pop-punk edges alive. The vocals of Matty Mullins are wonderful as he has such a fine voice, but really stick around for the songwriting: it’s clever, sharp and moving.
