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Taking
Back Sunday
Tell All Your Friends
label: Victory Records
released: 03.26.02
our score: 3.0 out of 5.0
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Most
veterans of the annual music and sports tour known as Warped Tour
are not known from their shining vocal ability. Singer such as
Dickey Barrett of the Mighty Mighty Bosstones and Jordan Pundik
of New Found Glory initially come to mind as singers who must
have missed a few singing lessons in their younger days. The newest
buzz from the Warped Tour circuit is New Jersey emotional pop
punk band Taking Back Sunday and they offer up two more names
to the lists of “singers” in Adam Lazzara and John
Nolan.
The biggest problem with the singing is the blatan flaunting of
their lack of ability. Where singers like Dickey and Jordan try
to hide their singing voices the two TBS singers make sure the
listener takes note. Most of the songs have at least one moment
of an incredibly shrill and tone deaf scream and it’s really
hard to not just turn the CD off at these moments because it really
is that bad. No one says you need to be the best singer but it
would be nice if you didn’t go out of your way to prove
that you aren’t. Songs such as “Ghost Man on Third”
and “The Blue Channel” prove incredibly trying because
the screaming is enough to make ones ears bleed.
But surprisingly, if you are able to get past the singing (this,
however, is a big if) Tell All Your Friends is a good
album as far as emo-punk goes. The genre in general lacks much
power, edge, or diversity. With their heavily layered guitar sound
and rapid fire delivery TBS makes a valiant attempt at bridging
the music of Fugazi with the lyrics of The Smiths.
In
one of the most singable break up songs of recent member (and
current single) “Cute Without the ‘E’ (Cut from
the team)” provides such Morrisey-esque lyrics as “When
everything you’ll get is everything that you’ve wanted,
princess, which would you prefer? My finger on the trigger or
me face down across the floor?” This is the typical type
of fare on this CD; nothing mind blowing but it does its job in
the genre.
The
genre itself has too many crying, sensitive front men such as
Chris Carrabba to ever be taken seriously by the punk rock community
but Taking Back Sunday does a pretty decent job of bridging the
gap. In the end the singing ability and sometimes overly-cliched
lyrics are a bit too prevalent to warrant attention from fans
outside of the genre but it is quite a bit better than much of
the other offerings from the Warped Tour set.
18-Mar-2003
11:30 AM
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