Never Take Friendship Personal — Anberlin

Never Take Friendship Personal is Anberlin's second album, and it's the one where the band from Winter Haven, Florida, found the sound that carried it for the next decade. Tooth & Nail Records put it out on February 1, 2005. It's eleven songs in about thirty-nine minutes, all written by singer Stephen Christian and guitarist Joseph Milligan. We give it an 8/10.

How it came together

Anberlin had only been a band for about a year when its debut, Blueprints for the Black Market, came out in 2003. That record never charted, but it sold more than 60,000 copies, helped along by the single Readyfuels. For the follow-up, the band went back to producer Aaron Sprinkle. He recorded it in 2004 at The Compound in Seattle and engineered it too. JR McNeely mixed it, and Troy Glessner mastered it.

The lineup had changed by then, and the title tells you how. Rhythm guitarist Joey Bruce was pushed out. Christian said Bruce was "all about sex, drugs and rock & roll" and was heading somewhere the rest of them weren't. A few replacements didn't stick, and then Nathan Strayer came over from The Mosaic. So the album was made by Christian on vocals and keys, Milligan on lead guitar, Strayer on rhythm guitar and vocals, Deon Rexroat on bass and Nathan Young on drums. The album's name came out of that split.

They brought in friends, too. Ryan Clark of Demon Hunter screams on the title track. Seth Roberts of Watashi Wa sings on Stationary Stationery, Phil Sneed of Story of the Year turns up on The Runaways, and Mike Weiss of mewithoutYou plays guitar on the closer. Before it came out, the band posted one song a week on PureVolume, MySpace and its own website.

What you're hearing

Christian later summed up the band's first three albums in one line. The first was man against the world, this one was man against man, and Cities was man against himself. That's a fair map of this record. It's about friends who let you down, people you didn't say the right thing to in time, and the damage two people can do to each other.

The title track opens fast, with Clark's screams tearing across Christian's clean voice. Paperthin Hymn comes next, and it's the song most people know. It's a big, aching chorus over bright guitars, about a relationship falling apart. A Day Late is about missing your chance with someone. It's built a lot like Foreign Language from the first album, and that's no bad thing. The Feel Good Drag is the darkest song here. It's about lust and lying, and it hits harder than most of the record. (The Symphony of) Blasé, which fans also call Amsterdam, is the slow, sad one in the middle.

Then the album gets more ambitious near the end. A Heavy Hearted Work of Staggering Genius is a minute-long interlude, and Dance, Dance Christa Päffgen runs seven minutes. It's about the singer Nico, whose real name was Christa Päffgen, and her struggle with drugs. You can hear the long closers on Cities starting right here.

What the critics said

Most reviewers liked it, and a few liked it more than the debut. At Jesus Freak Hideout, John DiBiase gave it four stars. He called it "a solid sophomore effort from these experts of catchy, hooky alternative rock," and said "Stephen Christian's vocals have never sounded better." Rick Anderson at AllMusic gave it four stars and put it simply: "Very highly recommended overall." AbsolutePunk's Scott Weber gave it 88 percent and praised the band for writing beautiful songs with euphoric vocals.

Andy Argyrakis at Christianity Today gave it four stars. He said it "features sophisticated alternative sonics, ample hooks and sweeping melodies." Tony Cummings at Cross Rhythms gave it eight out of ten and wrote, "Seldom has art rock worn such an accessible sheen." Johan Wippsson at Melodic called it "a fantastic album and a great follow up, even better than their great debut." Jordan Rogowski at Punknews.org called it "one hell of a guilty pleasure."

The coolest review came from CCM Magazine. Louis R. Carlozo gave it a B-minus. He said the songs and their sing-along hooks often satisfy, but that the album as a whole doesn't get past a formula.

Faith in the background

This isn't a worship record, and the band never pretended it was. DiBiase wrote that it "strays even further from any spirituality their debut possessed," with only a hint of it in Paperthin Hymn and (The Symphony of) Blasé. Argyrakis said much the same. He called it fine "for those seeking an artfully made and engagingly played project, just not ideal for those looking for faith based edification."

Christian pushed back on the Christian band label for years. He once said his faith "affects every single aspect of my life, but I'm not a preacher, I'm an entertainer." That's how this album works. The faith sits underneath songs about broken trust and second chances. It shows in what the songs hope for, not in what they preach.

How it did

It did better than the debut. Never Take Friendship Personal reached No. 144 on the Billboard 200, Anberlin's first time on that chart. A Day Late and Paperthin Hymn both came out as singles with music videos, and Paperthin Hymn climbed to No. 38 on Billboard's Modern Rock chart. Three years later, the band re-recorded The Feel Good Drag for its major-label debut, New Surrender. That new version went to No. 1 on the Alternative Songs chart.

The album has lasted. For its twentieth anniversary, Anberlin released Nevertake in March 2025. It's a full re-recording with new singer Matty Mullins. The band toured the songs that year, and Christian joined them at Furnace Fest. Strayer, who played on every song here, died in 2017.

Where the score lands

So why an eight? Paperthin Hymn and A Day Late are two of the best singles any Tooth & Nail band put out in the mid-2000s, and the album holds up around them. It's short, tight and full of hooks. Sprinkle's production makes everything shine without sanding the edges off. Why not a nine? Carlozo had a point. A few of the middle songs follow the same pattern, and Cities would do all of this with more range two years later. And why not a seven? Because The Feel Good Drag and Dance, Dance Christa Päffgen show a band already reaching past the formula, and the best songs still sound great twenty years on.

Watch

First up is the original official music video for Paperthin Hymn. After that comes the official video for A Day Late from the 2025 re-recording, Nevertake, with Matty Mullins singing. It's not the 2005 original. Last is the original 2005 album version of A Day Late, so you can hear Christian sing it.

Where this album sits on Loud Faith

This is the record that leads straight into Anberlin's Cities, so start here and move forward. It came out the same year as Mae's The Everglow and Demon Hunter's The Triptych, and the guest list ties it to mewithoutYou's Catch for Us the Foxes too. If you liked the big choruses of Underoath's They're Only Chasing Safety, this is the melodic side of the same Florida scene.