Ralston Valley [e]Xpress Newspaper

Cover of Dear Agony

Breaking Benjamin’s new album, Dear Agony, was released yesterday on September 29th.  Their latest single, “I Will Not Bow” began playing on the radio on August 11th.  It has since reached the the top twenty highest rated songs on Alternative Songs as featured in Billboard Magazine.

 After the immense popularity of their last album, Phobia, released in 2006, Breaking Benjamin had set a near-impossible challenge to beat.  Already the CD has received numerous popular reviews from online fans, most of which analyze each member of the band’s personal growth as a musician.   However, RV listeners generally seem slightly disappointed.  The overall student consensus seems to be along the lines of, “It was okay, but Phobia was better.”

Of course, with four singles to Dear Agony’s solitary “I Will Not Bow,” two of which have topped the charts, Phobia is a hard album to top.  Not only that, but Breaking Benjamin’s resolution to never repeat themselves musically means they can’t take parts of old songs that worked for them to write more music.

However, BB fans shouldn’t take this as a caution against purchase.  Overall it’s an excellent album with a wide range of sound and is considered by some to “represent the evolution of Breaking Benjamin,” with a variety of charactristics from each of their previous albums, Saturate, We Are Not Alone, and of course, Phobia.