Being a bona fide Taking Back Sunday stan has not been a breezy stroll in the park over the past seven years. Since their robust classic rock-indebted LP Tidal Wave in 2016—their seventh—the band’s musical output has all but run on slim picking leitmotivs. Maybe through a little bit of fault of their own. Like it or not, they didn’t capitalize on the latter end of the past decade’s emo revival, fell prey of not one, but two new nostalgia-fueling anniversary traps in-between, kept us trippy during the pandemic with their Fuckin Whatever side-project, and embarked on an eyebrow-raising yet sticky one-off joint with OTT electronic dance DJ Steve Aoki right around this time last year. Today, Friday 30th June, marks the day they’re back with their first slice of new original music in four years.

The Long Island outfit, now officially a quartet after the painful departure of founding member and longtime guitarist Eddie Reyes in 2018, has released “The One“, a number that embodies all guises so as to pass as the lead single in anticipation to a forthcoming eight studio album. Accompanied by a tongue-in-cheek and self-aware DJay Brawner-directed music video, and backed by new imprint Fantasy Records through Nashville-based indie circuit powerhouse Concord, the record finds Taking Back Sunday in a tender and content mood. Billed by the band as a “sweet love song—full-on John Cusack holding a boombox”, the alt rocking cut coasts through a soaring compositional dynamic, culminating in an emphatic post-chorus refrain aptly delivered by lead guitarist and backing vocalist John Nolan: “Now I’m close enough to reach you / All the walls that I could see through / Still the words that I can’t say go on and on and on“.

More than on any other recent sonic teaser dished out by the foursome, the trademark vocal call and response dynamic between frontman Adam Lazzara and Nolan is fiercely on point here. Underpinned by a spacious and expansive electric guitar-led soundbed, it’s the principal vocal delivery that pulls the biggest heavy-lifting for the track, both melodically and performance-wise. The songwriting is injected with a solid dose of romantic honesty, doubling as an unconditional tribute to one’s significant other—a thematic impetus acutely elevated by the broad and big Tushar Apte-assisted production, lending the main chorus a fitting revelatory closure: “Oh, I’m better off for betting / I’d be better off forgetting / Go big, or go home / If I was the one / Like you’re my one / You are the one / You arе the one / The onе“.

The overtly pop-oriented and former Chris Brown, BTS, and Demi Lovato-collaborator Apte is actually a fairly unorthodox production decision for the outfit, and one which could prove enthusing in charting a speculative new artistic direction the whole—yet to be formally announced—project might be leaning toward. After their watertight two-album run on California’s Hopeless Records over the past ten years with legendary underground New York producer Mike Sapone at the helm (2014’s Happiness Is and the aforementioned Tidal Wave), the band looks to be on the prowl for a different and riskier approach, perhaps nudged by the new incubating record label. Safe to say, it’s starting to show from this initial appetizer. Case in point, “The One”‘s got radio-friendly hooks, a lavish and perhaps overly sanitized mix, as well as an overall compositional arc arguably more at home with pop-first material, than a landmark Noughties emo band’s eight career album. The good news is that the overhauled format is neither off-putting nor impulse-warping, allowing for the band’s storied and signature songwriting to still bleed through in earnest.

Speaking of which, Taking Back Sunday had this to say about the initial pre-pandemic gestation of the single:

This song came from a riff that [bassist] Shaun Cooper wrote the day he lost his grandmother while she was in a nursing home at the start of the Covid pandemic. Devastated with overpowering sadness, he found comfort in writing music and initially titled the riff ‘Posivibes’ in an effort to find some light through the darkness. He never shared the story of the title or how that riff came together with us until after it was complete. Shaun didn’t want his story affecting the ultimate meaning of the song, because it’s actually an uplifting one.

The somewhat laid-back and unintrusive instrumentation committed to tape here suits the prime valence of the reclaimed sugary messaging, which takes yield over anything else. Such an understated ethos, slyly laced into the three minutes and change record, concedes only to a mightier and grander chorus—effectively preempting what could’ve been a flashier return to the scene after seven years. While the choice is an unexpected one to say the least, “The One” ultimately stands as an accomplished example of a group putting the song at the core of this tune first, over any embellishment or heady instrumentation—not necessarily something the band has historically always excelled at.

Furthermore, fans ought not mind the seeming void of ancillary leave behinds accompanying this latest single, without much pointing to a larger project coming in our later in the year; for the branding overhaul on Taking Back Sunday’s online properties—as well as a general tangible momentum surrounding this one drop—possesses all of the crucial signaling that past standalone single releases didn’t. If nothing else, with an imminent summer on the road in the USA headlining the touring Sad Summer Fest with fellow scene fixtures The Maine, PVRIS, and Hot Mulligan, it’s high time for the Long Islanders to usher into their next album cycle, with a new line up formation, and a restored creative phase. We missed them so much.

We’d like to thank you sincerely for taking the time to read this and we hope to feel your interest again next time.

AV

TAKING BACK SUNDAY

THE ONE

2023, Fantasy Records

https://takingbacksunday.com