Taking Back Sunday - New Again. (This is more of a thought than a review.)

    I've been listening to Taking Back Sunday since I was in high school. I was full of angst and no good with girls so their brand of confessional punk rock was a perfect fit. When I was first introduced to them they had just released their second full length album and I listened to both albums obsessively. The timing of their third release was oddly perfect. I had just graduated high school and been dumped by my first serious girlfriend. Mourning that loss and dealing with the fear and anxiety of starting college, I lost myself in Taking Back Sunday's dark world once again. Albums I love the most are always ones that perfectly capture how I'm feeling when they show up in my life and that have the ability to bring me back to those feelings when they've passed.

     Now I'm 22 years old, I have a girlfriend of over 2 years whom I love and trust and I'm listening to Taking Back Sunday's latest album, New Again. The riffs are catchy, the guitars and drums are loud and lead singer Adam Lazzara is pouring his heart out as always, but something feels different. At a first listen I thought the production was the problem. Too quiet, too sleek, too something. Comparing it to the first three albums though, I noticed it fit their formula and realized therein lies the problem. This album is a continuation of their angsty motif and I just don't relate anymore.

     I used to believe that bands who never moved away from what made them popular were sellouts. I also believed that there were good bands and bad bands and only intelligent people could tell the difference. I see now that all art, popular music included, is subjective and that very few bands make music that means nothing to them. The bands whose albums I continue to buy and enjoy are the ones who change with me and I now see that this is not by any concious effort on their part (how could it be, they've never met me?) but rather some random chance that makes the mystery of art so compelling. I may not have enjoyed this album very much, but I have no doubt that there is a sad teenager somewhere falling in love with it as it helps him through the melodramas unfolding in his life.