Album Review 001: I'm an addict for dramatics

Featured Album
Album Louder Now Band Taking Back Sunday Release Date April 25, 2006 Score
Featured Track
Miami

The Track Listing
1. What It Feels Like To Be A Ghost 2. Liar (It Takes One To Know One) 3. MakeDamnSure 4. Up Against (Blackout) 5. My Blue Heaven 6. Twenty-Twenty Surgery	7. Spin 8. Divine Intervention 9. Miami 10. Error Operator 11. I'll Let You Live

The Back Story

Louder Now (LN from now on) is Taking Back Sunday's (TBS) third full-length album; their first is "Tell All Your Friends" (TAYF) and their second is "Where You Want To Be" (WYWTB) - you can hear the title of each album sung in one of its songs. TAYF, naturally, has the most underground and unconventional sound of the three. They were one of the first bands to be branded as emo and debuted TAYF right before the surge of emo-rock bands that many of you have become more than familiar with by now. However, even now, with the over-abundance of emo bands, TBS still stands taller than most due to its messenger-name-ready-chorus-lyrics and duel vocals. WYWTB is the CD that pushed them into the mainstream, having their singles played on the radio and even in Spider Man 2; one of their songs on LN was featured in a superhero movie soundtrack as well. This of course gained them many new fans, while probably abandoning a few who may have found their new album too radio-friendly. Now, almost two years later, TBS has released their third full-length album, Louder Now.

The Album

I have always found WYWTB to be a bit on the bland side; it is definitely less creative than TAYF. Maybe Adam (lead) was having trouble collaborating with John's (other vocalist from TAYF) replacement, Fred. If that was the case, it seems like they have overcome whatever issues they were dealing with and have created an incredibly solid, pump'd, and generally energetic album. It is fairly obvious that we will never hear another album like TAYF (I don't mean to sound like I'm praising it), but I am more than comfortable with their more radio-friendly sound. It is also nice to see some more creative songs on this album. Unlike Sum 41's second album, "All Killer, No Filler", there is absolutely no filler on this album. In fact, if I were to play this CD for someone who hadn’t heard TBS before and tell him/her that it was their greatest hits album, I am confident I’d get away with it. Every song is fast, aggressive, and hella pump’d. If there's one thing that these guys have done the same since the beginning, it’s the predictable VERSE-CHORUS-VERSE-CHORUS-SLOWPART-CHORUS-CHORUS structure of all their songs, save the standard "slow song", which is all SLOWPART. This is not a bad thing, and by no means should they be penalized for such an obvious and widely used method for song construction. In fact, since its such an obvious structure, it's not really that noticeable until it is explicitly pointed out to you, which I basically just did; my bad. All the choruses feature the same strained and desperate vocalizations of lead singer Adam Lazzara accompanied by the more macho and “yelly” sound of his right-hand man Fred Mascherino. Sometimes it is hard to distinguish between the two vocalists, but as far as I am concerned, this has no impact on the albums overall performance. Like I've said, the duel vocals have always been my most favourite aspect of this band and am surprised Hawthorne Heights hasn't mimicked it yet. Lyrics. These guys (the CD jacket simply says that the songs and lyrics were written by "Taking Back Sunday") write great lyrics. They rhyme (or at least alliterate) and our rot with clever poetic devices. These are the kinds of lyrics that make "emo-kids" wet; they are angry, vengeful, aggressive and all around pessimistic. In the "underground", they are probably well known for their clever use of gun metaphors in TAYF. Fortunately, they use lyrics to express such emotions and not screaming, the tactic that bread the emo subgenre, screemo. I would really like to see these guys write an optimistic and upbeat song for once, but until then, I will just have to listen to Relient K to pep me up.

The Songs

1. What It Feels Like To Be A Ghost This song is the first of the album. Fortunately it does the album justice starting with a catchy, grungy, and purposefully under-produced riff that soon enough leads into a crunchy palm-muted verse. Without surprise, the guitarists release their palms just in time for a loud chorus driven by the lyrics "What's it feel like to be a ghost?" and "Are you up for this?", with Fred and Adam taking turns at the mic. We then get another verse and chorus followed by a soft and slow verse that builds itself up into the initial riff, followed by the chorus. 2. Liar (It Takes One To Know One) The song starts off with the bassist continuously strumming a single note whilst being accompanied by what sounds like a ride cymbal. The guitars quickly come in with some light strumming as well and are followed by Adam and Fred. The song then takes off like most songs on this album with the catchy chorus promoting typical (for TBS) biting lyrics. This song, however, trades in the slow part for a strictly instrumental part with some muted screaming in the background. 3. MakeDamnSure This is the single. It begins with Adam inhaling, readying himself for the fury of metaphor he's about to unleash. The verses are generally a little less hostile than the previous two songs, being driven primarily by Adam and the drums. Otherwise this song provides little surprises; I so wish “Twenty Twenty Surgery” or “Miami’ were chose to be the first single. This would make it a little more obvious to the public that they have evolved musically. 4. Up Against (Blackout) The song immediately begins with the chorus where Adam yells "This is what we're up against", grabbing your attention right away. Because of this, I would have liked to see this song be the first on the album. This song features more laid back verses than the three previous songs, but provides a just-as-excellent chorus spotlighting one of my favourite lyrics on the album "Every minute is a minute away". The slow part on this song is replaced with a short breakdown that is actually more pumped than the verses. 5. My Blue Heaven When I first heard this song, I expected it to be the slow song as it starts off with some pleasant plucking of the guitar. However, it quickly picked up and ended up being one of my most favourite songs on the album. I was half right though, as this song is generally slower than the rest of the songs on the album (except the required "Slow Song"). The strings track in the chorus and Adam's on-the-verge-of-crying vocals during the slow part wonderfully amplify the mournful theme to this song. 6. Twenty-Twenty Surgery This song starts with the whole band in full motion, with Adam quickly joining in. This song really stands out to me on this album with a much different sounding verse and chorus. It mostly has to do with the way Adam sings. The verses are made up of some eerily catchy and rhythmic riffs and vocals, where the chorus features very basic instrumentals and Adam singing with a much deeper voice than he usually has. 7. Spin This song begins with a very unique whining guitar riff that is abruptly joined by the rest of the band in a exceptionally frantic rock medley. Adam joins in with the voice he usually saves for the choruses. The chorus is just as frantic as the verses. Don’t worry though, we get to take a break from all the stress with a quick breakdown that builds up to - you guessed it - the final chorus. 8. Divine Intervention This is the slow song. I'm not sure why bands always include the slow song. It really breaks up the intense momentum the rest of the album keeps throwing at you. Thankfully they didn't resort to an Adam + Guitar slow song and settled, instead, for something a little more interesting. What do I mean by interesting? Well I'm glad I asked on your behalf. What makes it interesting is the very appropriate and unrecognizable sound effects and bell parts; they really give the entire song a very cool and cozy atmosphere. I would have liked this song to be my featured song, but it would falsely represent the album, regardless of how cool and different it may be. 9. Miami I love how this song begins. I get such a boner from that punchy guitar sound that only hits every other note; it's all over this song. I also liked how the guitars drown out Adam's voice during the chorus and feature a small guitar solo; enjoy it, it's the only one. A strings track is used in this song, which amplifies the overall sad theme to the song. I have not described the structure of this song since I have made it my featured track; you can figure out how it starts, gets going, and ends on your own. 10. Error Operator During my "Back Story" portion of the review I mentioned how a song on this album could be found on the soundtrack of a superhero movie. Well if that last sentence didn't clue you in to what I'm about to say, what I'm about to say will: Error Operator was actually released on iTunes as a single and on the soundtrack for the major motion picture, The Fantastic (failure of a movie) Four. I have yet to see the movie and have no idea at what point it was played during the movie, or what part of the song was played. If you remember Spiderman 2, you may remember that their song was only played during the ending credits. So hopefully they've been promoted this time around. As for the actual song, it's great; it's typical. It starts off with just the bass and quickly lets the rest of the band join in, almost immediately jumping into a quick version of the chorus. Like "Spin" this song is consistently frantic throughout, except for the scheduled slow part. 11. I'll Let You Live This is the longest song on the album. This is the slowest (besides the "slow song") song on the album. This is also my least favourite song on the entire album. I can see why this song was pushed to the end of the line. It's as if they just ran out of steam (though it features the most lyrics of any song on the album) and needed to reach that golden 11-track quota. I find most albums don't finish on a high note though, so don’t let it spoil the other awesome tracks on the album.

Final Impressions

I prefer this album to all other TBS albums. It is a complete improvement on WYWTB in every way and though does not have the "classic" reputation that TAYF has, it is the most solid release of the three with essentially no filler (thanks to track 11). Though the songs may follow a fairly obvious structure, TBS is able to make each song stand out on its own, never making you (or at least me) feel like you've heard it before. In the end, I gave this song four and a half heart containers out of 5. I can only give an album five full heart containers if I can confidently give each song a five star rating in my iTunes library. This album could have received all five star ratings if they had expanded their song structure just a bit more and put more effort into the final track.