Taking Back Sunday

Where You Want To Be

Awesome CD, Awesome Band

Review Score:

(10/10)
New Jersey basement rock is one of the hottest trends in music today, but it wasn't always that way. The members of the emo-outfit Taking Back Sunday were part of the birth into the mainstream. They debuted into major record stores with their 2002 release, Tell All Your Friends which spawned the major single, "Cute Without the 'E' (Cut From The Team)." Now, the boys are back with a fresher, stronger sophomore disc, Where You Want To Be, with a new single, "A Decade Under the Influence."

Many of the songs are hard-hitting, while the rest are atmospheric heart-bleeders. Lead singer Adam Lazzarra writes some interesting lyrics full of metaphors and poetry such as the lyrics in the song "Set Phasers To Stun."

"Well theres a secret I've been perfecting/ I swore I wouldn't but you let me/ I'm comfortably confused/ (and you...) You've gotten so removed/ You know I, I could take the place of those pills/ Ocean blue, paint it white/ Now who ya gonna call tonight?"

The band does this while maintaining a catchiness to the music that enthralls the listener. This alone makes Where You Want To Be not only a disc of 11 songs, but an experience.

The album starts off with "Set Phasers To The Sun," a fast-paced apology with a marching beat. The thing about the songs the members of Taking Back Sunday writes is it's sometimes hard to follow what they're saying because, like their counterparts Brand New, the words go fast and sometimes two vocalists are each singing a different set of lyrics.

Following the first track comes "Bonus Mosh Pt. 2," a number full of indecisiveness and frustration. "A Decade Under the Influence" is a great tune in the same vein as the first two songs, but the record slows down with "The Photograph Is Proof," in which the singer is about feeling ignored at times by someone who thinks they know everything.

Most of the songs on the disc sound almost the same, yet the sound alone is enough to listen to for hours upon hours and learn every word. Following "The Photograph..." is a rager called "The Union" and the first acoustic track on the disc called "New American Classic," that is a beautifully created and played tear-jerking break-up song. The track itself almost makes time stop, but picks right back up where it left off with "I Am Fred Astaire" and, quite possibly the best song on the CD (besides "New American Classic"), "One-Eighty By Summer."

The song is an amazing piece of guitar rock in that it almost seems like Lazzara is having a breakdown. If art is an exaggeration of the artist's emotions, then this is the perfect example of art. It's an epic piece that just does not stop piling up the tension until the very end with a long string of feedback. Following "One-Eighty" are "Number Five With A Bullet" and "Little Devotional," that are standard guitar-drums Taking Back Sunday songs.

Where You Want To Be closes out with "...Slowdance On The Inside," a song in which the speed is never very obvious, but an enveloping song with a hint of strings on the soft parts, that was a brilliant idea to give the song a more atmospheric quality.

The band has very well made itself a staple among the semi-punk and "emo" genre along with bands like Thursday, Dashboard Confessional, Brand New, Coheed and Cambria, Thrice, The Get Up Kids, and At-The Drive In. Anyone that's heard any of those bands and have even remotely liked them should definately pick up Where You Want To Be. There's something for everyone on the album to listen to. The album also addresses issues that aren't well expressed just by talking about them. These guys have done a great job at what they're doing and have proved that they will only get stronger.

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