Taking Back Sunday - New again

Everyone knows Taking Back Sunday. A first album seen as a genre's classic, a second one that put them in the scene's high ranks and a third one in the form of commercial success, the band from Long Island doesn't need any introduction. As its name suggests, their fourth album marks a new start for the band. It's a new Taking Back Sunday that we will now have to deal to.

The departure of Fred Mascherino during 2007's fall caused much comment and stays a major turning point in the band's history, him that only joined the adventure at the moment of their debuts on major in 2003. The song 'Capital M-E' is devoted to him and the least we can say is that the two parties didn't leave each other on good terms, as we could have already noticed in the interviews given by the interested ones. "The nicest man I ever met was more malicious than malcontent / Yeah he taught me how to hold my tongue / And wait to strike 'til their backs were turned / And you slither away like the snake that you are". Genuine settling of scores, the song is a little like this new album: a pleasant composition, a few interesting arpeggios (so radio-sized that they remind Coldplay on this track) giving a semblance of consistance to an easy chorus and a good but with no surprise performance from Adam Lazzara.
The first mistake of the record can be found in its tracklisting. The two catchiest tracks have been put at the beginning and the two most creative ones placed at the very end, which as a consequence makes us feel a certain bad patch around the middle of the album. We find the more conventional and easy-listening sound of 'Louder now' again on tracks like 'New again' and 'Lonely, lonely'. Riffs are powerful, drums are fast, it's in the total continuity of the previous album. 'Carpathia' is probably the heaviest song, the excellent but way too rare vocal interventions of bassist Matt Rubano and newcomer Matthew Fazzi putting new life into the verses and serving even more Lazzara's singing. We also find on this track what seems to be the first (mini) bass solo of Taking Back Sunday's history! The record's best moment is at the very end: 'Everything must go' experiments a few more tones, with a great intro in two stages, an ambitious chorus and a progressive rhythm concluding on an epic riffs' burst.
The rest is very "radio-friendly", from the typical ballad a la U2 'Where my mouth is' to the easy single 'Sink into me' falsely energetic bringing Taking Back Sunday back to the level of its common outsiders despite the rhythm changes brought by Lazzara's craziness's bursts. The whole stays instrumentally good but quite repetitive and not much memorable. From an overall point of view, 'New again' lacks intensity and creativity. We can't say that Adam didn't try, making many efforts to instil a breathe of energy by its vocals still as entertaining and particular but a little weaker than in the past. He seems to have put much into this album, especially on the lyrics level, where he dwells on many personal topics, from Mascherino ('Summer man') to his divorce with Eisley's Chauntelle DuPree ('Everything must go') or its past addictions ('Where my mouth is'). On this same song, for the first time we can also hear him expressing himself on the "death" of the early Taking Back Sunday (John Nolan and Shaun Cooper having left the band in 2003 to start Straylight Run, Eddie Reyes today is the only original member left) and its implication in this separation: "And now I'm staring at the floor / Where my second life just ended / Where I lost not one, but two friends [...] See, I had it all / But I threw it away / Just to prove that I could".

It's an interesting part given that for many, Taking Back Sunday self-destructed after Nolan and Cooper's departure and will never release an album drawing level with 'Tell all your friends'. And yet, the band had announced a return to this sound not long before the release of 'New again'. A declaration that certainly didn't deserve to be made, as today's Taking Back Sunday completely stands out from the first album's one. The two first records' "raw" sound is buried for good, replaced by an intensive polishing of the vocals and the intruments that removes all the savor from a band having the potential of this one. On 'Louder now', it was working, but here the double vocals' dynamics is terribly missed, which was kind of the band's hallmark. Fazzi isn't a Mascherino II, letting the vocals' monopoly to Lazzara, which makes us regret the tasty rhythm changes orchestrated by the unceasing shifts between his voice and Fred's one.
'New again' thus sounds really bland compared to its predecessors. It may not be a bad album, but it's by the far the weakest from Taking Back Sunday which at the same time deliver us the least good song they ever wrote with 'Cut me up Jenny'. It's most probably the moment for a generation of fans to pass it on to another one.

3/5

Recommanded if you like:
The All-American Rejects, Armor For Sleep, My Chemical Romance
Check also:
The Color Fred, Northstar, Smudge

www.myspace.com/takingbacksunday
(Warner Bros. Records, 2009)