:: Taking Back Sunday - New Again

Taking Back Sunday

If you were to take alternative rock act Taking Back Sunday’s word on their new album ‘New Again’, you would be led to believe that their fourth full-length effort was really something quite different from anything that had ever done before. That could very well be true, providing of course that you hadn’t heard anything new from the band since the release of their first couple of albums. But if you’ve been a devoted follower of the New York act, and are familiar with 2006’s ‘Louder Now’, then you’ll know that the differences between their latest effort and their former effort are minimal at best. A lot of the band’s comments come down to the fact that they’ve once again undertaken another line-up change, with guitarist/backing vocalist Matthew Fazzi replacing Fred Mascherino within the band toward the tail end of 2008. Of course, that’s not to say that ‘New Again’ is a disappointment, because it’s anything but that. If anything, ‘New Again’ is the sound of a matured and comfortable Taking Back Sunday, with their fourth effort following through with the evolution and progression that has been consistent with all of the band’s previous releases. The bass thumping opening title track ‘New Again’ gives listeners an idea of what to expect from the rest of the album, with the band opting for a more mainstream rock sound, all the while claiming ‘I am ready to be new again’. The energetic first single/promotional video clip ‘Sink Into Me’ maintains the rock vibe and feel of the opener with the added injection of urgency from all involved through the instruments, with the edgier and heavier ‘Lonely, Lonely’ and the slightly laid back ‘Summer, Man’ only adding additional fuel to opening duo to keep the momentum of the album flowing through effortlessly. ‘Swing’, ‘Carpathia’, ‘Catholic Knees’ and ‘Cut Me Up Jenny’ each add a harder edged sound to the latter half of the album, making them all stand out as some of the stronger efforts, while the dramatic closer ‘Everything Must Go’ features one of the most passionate and fiery performances from Lazzara in a long time. Of course, not everything on the album works perfectly. While quite breezy and easy on the ear, ‘Where My Mouth Is’ does tend to sound more disposable with repeat listens, while ‘Capital M-E’ (Which is lyrically aimed at Mascherino departure and his comments made after the fact) is all too similar to Coldplay in the riff department. If you’ve been considering picking up the limited edition version of the album with the bonus D.V.D., then be prepared for a bit of a letdown too. Comprised of three components, the ‘Behind The Scenes Part 1’ starts things off with a rather dull ten minutes of footage of the band at a photo shoot, followed closely with the mildly more interesting thirteen minute feature ‘Behind The Scenes Part 2’, where the band are filmed while recording the album in the studio. The only really interesting segment is the twenty-five minute ‘Track By Track’ feature, where all the members have their say on each individual track on the album. ‘New Again’ doesn’t feature much of the so called ‘new sound’ Taking Back Sunday were boasting about prior to the release of the album. But what it does have over ‘Louder Now’ is a sense of maturity and gelling of song structure and individual ideas. Taking Back Sunday latest isn’t so much new, but more refined, and sounding all the before for it.