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Taking Back Sunday have been churning out crowd pleasing, deeper than pop, rock since their 1999 inception in the modern musical hotbed of Long Island. The version of Taking Back Sunday that released New Again on June 2nd is ten years and a thousand miles away from that original incarnation, both musically and personnel wise with guitarist Eddie Reyes being the only original member still active in the band. Along the way TBS has shed members like a snake sheds skin and those members have gone on to different levels of success since leaving, with Jesse Lacey going on to front one of the modern generations best bands, and TBS’s oldest musical rival, Brand New, and John Nolan and Shaun Cooper leaving to create the at time awesome, at times awkward as fuck Straylight Run. Most recently Fred Mascherino made the unfortunate career choice of abandoning TBS for The Color Fred, a band whose music is as unoriginal and lame as their name.

Despite the revolving door of talent, the band truly is and always has been the property and instrument of Adam Lazzara, and thank Christ for that. The energetic, enigmatic and at times venomous lead singer has helmed the lead vocal position since TBS stunning break through album Tell All Your friends, which found an audience through it’s use of duel vocals, and seething lyrics aimed at ex-girlfriends and ex-band mates, most notably the musical battle between TBS and Brand New which played out through the tracks “There’s No I In Team” from Tell All Your Friends and “Seventy Times Seven” of off Brand New’s Your Favorite Weapon.

After the departure of Nolan and Cooper TBS released Where You Want To Be and first established their ability to change their line up, change their sound and still deliver songs that were technically sublime, catchy as hell and connected with both new and long time fans. This success lead to the band, which now included Mascherino, signing to major label Warner Bros, for the release of 2006’s stellar Louder Now.

Louder Now once again showcased an evolved TBS who still managed to spit venom over catchy staccato riffs and pop sensibility without creating lame, cookie cutter All-American Reject style rock. The release of Louder Now was, as has become familiar to TBS fans, followed by a line-up change as Mascherino hit the skids, literally (if you don’t believe me give The Color Fred’s Bend To Break a listen), and was replaced by Facing New York’s Matt Fazzi, and the band headed back into the studio.

The result of those studio sessions is New Again, the next stage of musical evolution for Lazzara and Co. – Fazzi, Reyes, Matt Rubano and drummer Mark O’Connell – which finds the band trading in some of their poppier tendencies for darker themes and chunkier riffs. That’s not to say that New Again doesn’t deliver vintage TBS, because it does that by the bucket load.

Summer Man is as TBS as it gets, with dual vocals and personal attacks which take Mascherino to task not just for leaving but for some of his comments dropped in the wake of his departure. Most significantly that he was “always giving in” during his time in TBS. There’s little doubt that when Lazzara sings “So go prove to the world / What you’ve already proved / That you just couldn’t do on your own.” That’s it’s aimed, double barreled straight at his former band mate’s chest. The lyrics that close the track, “The summer Is over /And I doubt (I doubt) / I’ll be seeing you around I’ll be seeing you around.” Aptly suit the album, as it feels more dark and autumnesque compared to the poppy, sunny highs of Louder Now’s distinctly summer feel.

Where My Mouth Is, sweetly paints a poetic portrait of Lazzara’s past indiscretions and could at times be aimed at Nolan and Cooper and address their departure and the melting of their friendship, during Lazzara’s much lauded hard partying days in New York. “I got a strong will just weak hands and I don’t know what to do with either one of them.” Is sung as much as an admission as a lament, and packs an emotional punch that most bands and singers couldn’t manage on their best day.

Cut Me Up Jenny is easily the poppiest song on the album and the closest New Again gets to vintage TBS combining Lazzara’s patented deliver mirrored perfectly by the staccato guitars and a chorus that could fit on any TBS album.

Album closer Everything Must Go deftly addresses the break up with Lazzara’s ex-fiancé, which left the formerly hard partying singer living in a dry town in Texas and like the track Catholic Knees offers indictments of religion and those who use it as they see fit. The song rolls along through the story of a relationship from the end stages that are half veracious anger and half lament, capturing a sense of both a time and place and the emotions that went along with it painting a picture that leaves the listener in a slightly uncomfortable place, wondering what’s next and where the road is going to lead.

Tracks like the afore mentioned Catholic Knees, Swing and Sink Into Me, show a different side of TBS, but there’s no mistaking who’s songs they are, and Carpathia is a brilliant track that rips along offering a glimpse into the darker style that New Again introduces.

New Again finds TBS doing what TBS does best, not letting the pot holes that drown most bands slow them down, but instead using them as an excuse to drive off in a different direction and create a new sound with the same feel that’s proved album after album that Taking Back Sunday are not only a great band, but one that wants to survive, one album at a time.

Taking Back Sunday – Where My Mouth Is
Taking Back Sunday – Summer, Man
Taking Back Sunday – Everything Must Go

Tags: Aaron Long, Adam Lazzara, Fred Mascherino, Jesse Lacey, John Nolan, Louder Now, New Again, Shaun Cooper, Taking Back Sunday, Tell All Your friends, The Color Fred, Where You Want To Be