The March 2002 release of Taking Back Sunday’s Tell All Your Friends (Victory) came like a hurricane and it stayed. On "Great Romances of the 20th Century," the band explodes with a barrage of "emo"tions, pleading with a lover who cannot be satisfied and who refuses to reciprocate love.The guitar riffs are loud with a spice of passion, while the arrangements capture the mellow angst of post-MTV generation "nothing shocks me" Gen-exers. The track following "Great Romances" is "Ghost Man On Third," where singer Adam Lazzara explains "silence means everything." Like Zen, for Taking Back, the silence between the notes is what makes them the current scr-emo leaders and frontrunners in the race for the attention of Spin readers and MTV2 worshipers.
Following some time off where they hit the studio to perfect their sound and work on new material, the band is back on tour. In November they perform at nearby Philadelphia and at Roseland Ballroom in New York City on Nov. 23, with Moneen.
The beauty of listening to Tell All Your Friends is the precision by the band to know how to balance the emotional blah that teens crave (as evident by Dashboard Confessional’s following) and the fierce power-driven loudness of a hard rock band.
Emo has evolved, and Taking Back and Thursday are keeping every day of the week a happy melancholy.
What started as guitarist Eddie Reyes’ small jam session at his Long Island home in 1999 has turned into the band to watch this year. Forget Good Charlotte; enjoy the weekend with Taking Back Sunday.
For information visit www.takingbacksunday.com.
They perform on Nov. 14-15 at the Electric Factory in Philadelphia and on Nov. 23 at Roseland with Saves the Day and Moneen. q