2002 was the year that post-hardcore broke its underground shackles and went into supernova. Thursday and Thrice signed to major labels, Finch blew up to become one of the hottest bands on the planet and hundreds of bands were spawned into off-shoot genres – screamo, melodic hardcore and all that malarkey. Many of these bands came from the now infamous New Jersey/Long Island scene, which has quickly become the Seattle of the 21st century. One such band was Victory Records’ Taking Back Sunday, who literally blew everyone away with their majestic debut full lengther, ‘Tell All Your Friends’.
This is a record that, like the Thursday album did, carries a genre. It’s an album that makes you want to start a band and play that kind of music. It’s an album that has moments of sheer brilliance where you sing along and the hairs stand up on the back of your neck. Produced by Sal Villanueva of Thursday fame, ‘Tell All Your Friends’ is a fantastic album, choc-full of singalong hooks, soaring melodies and brutal moments when everything seems to just fall apart. It’s organised chaos, aimed at “keeping you on the edge of my seat” as the band sing out in ‘Bike Scene’. In short, it’s sheer class.
The anthemic opener of ‘You Know How I Do’ cuts and slashes its way through with the dual vocals giving your cerebrum a good rip. The aforementioned ‘Bike Scene’ is a classic, with a hook the size of Holland and enough clatter to satisfy the hardcore fans. “I wanna hate you so bad,” they scream and you’ll be screaming back “but I can’t stop this…” before you know it, such is the pulling power of this album. ‘Cute Without The E’ carries on the ferocity and tempo, guitars driving from all over the shop and drums thumping their way across the vocals which bounce off each other to create one of the best choruses you’ll hear.
The cleverly titled ‘There’s No I In Team’ slows the pace down but rocks like a bastard, again the vocal melodies are fantastic and set the band apart from their many contemporaries. The first UK single, ‘Great Romances Of the 20th Century’ features a classic, orchestral opening before the wall of noise drills into the brain. Lyrically the band adopt a formula patented by fellow Long Islanders Brand New, using very simple language and often some childish rhymes to create such a vivid scene. Every song really does tell its own story – whether it be pain, disappointment or hatred.
‘Ghost Man On Third’ is the first song to really drop the pace and is almost eerie in its production, describing the desperation of battling personal anguish. It’s hard hitting, but you really wouldn’t expect anything less. ‘Timberwolves at New Jersey‘ features the fantastic self-mocking line “those words at best were worse than teenage poetry” which when combined with the driving melodies and crunching riffs makes for another fantastic song. A piano litters the intro to ‘The Blue Channel’ – a song which lambasts a former lover – making it effective and catchy as hell. ‘You’re So Last Summer’ will have you singing along merrily and the finale of ‘Head Club’ batters and twists its way through a tortured vocal. Again bating the opposite sex, the band mock themselves again with the line “I’m sick of writing every song about you.” Yes this is one album centred around the break up of a relationship, but when each song also contains a separate theme it has enough imagination and ingenuity to sucker everyone in.
In the ‘post-hardcore’ genre, or whatever you want to call it, you won’t find many better records than this. It sets the standard for the myriad of others to follow. A next generation of bands will be influenced by Taking Back Sunday – so strap in and enjoy them now before they blow up everywhere.
www.takingbacksunday.com
Paul