TBS

THANKSGIVING ALBUM ROUND UP | 2025-11-24

Some of us still pretend that Ryan Adams didn’t release four full length studio albums on New Year’s Day last year, and that’s not okay. Mind you, he’s gone on to release three more since (including the 25th-year anniversary edition of his trailblazing debut Heartbreaker)—which almost feels like a low yearly average for him—yet such a stint makes the detection of a fourth quarter release backloading in any given year provably harder. For context, the last time we noticed such late blooming was in the year of our Lord 2022, and we blabbered about that extensively. As we near the celebration of another revolution around the giant, hot-flaming burning star we call Sun, wrap up a full quarter of a deranged new century (or 2.5% of a millennium, depending on how long your horizon muscle flexes), and close off the books on a wonderfully off-the-wall 365 days without Olympics or World Cups, we’re here to report that this too shall likely go down as yet another front loaded year. Musically anyway, that is.

And not that there aren’t plenty of perfectly valid reasons for it to pan out this way. To record label executives the world over, the final three months of any calendar year are a bit like that connecting flight involving a lengthy, uninspiring, and code-switching airline overlay at a nondescript airport: inevitable to get to your destination, yet accompanied by a somewhat sour taste in one’s mouth for the direct flight was not quite out of reach, but simply too expensive in this late-stage capitalism juncture of diminishing returns. Quarter 4, i.e. the financial accounting period allotted from October through December each year, is a pesky and awkward one not just in the music industry. Weathers get colder and darker—unless you relocate to Florida, which is exactly what this newsroom has done—people grow increasingly tired and worn out, inflated budgets are mostly unspent and shall go lost before the turn of the year on 31st December, bookkeepers are bracing for their busiest months, and the inexorable wrath of commodified ethnocentric holidays seem like the only chewing gums and breadsticks holding the chassis of Western civilizations together.

For record executives dripping in Fear of God Essentials and Balenciaga threads, Q4 also means entering into a liminal marketing space not unlike a music industry Bermuda Triangle. Major awards eligibility periods and consideration requirements for the following year tend to clock in then, with significant implications over exact street dates and how they might affect a project’s eleventh hour consideration for those prizes. Moreover, coveted and hyper inflated Albums of the Year lists by lukewarm-yet-rainmaking critics and pundits alike are increasingly being brought forward and published earlier and earlier each year. Absurdly, some of them start to percolate at the beginning of November. This trend de facto turns November and December into guaranteed oblivion scrapheap release months, for most of y’all out there have goldfish memory spans and sure as hell won’t remember to pluck from said months when reaching AOTY verdicts a year down the line. (Side note here, this is exactly why EMS won’t ever budge from publishing our AOTY around Christmas time each year. November and December have not only gifted us outta sight albums in the past, but last time we checked they both still count as valid months within a given calendar, fiscal, and administrative year. Come on, man).

Notwithstanding another backloading slump, we did want to take a moment to savor in the irresistible temptation to co-opt a public US observance of questionable origins to round up a handful projects we’d hate to have slip by you all. Rigorously, these have all been released well within this ongoing Q4 financial period: this might double as the final music-centric EMS serving before the highly-anticipated, and intentionally long-awaited, Albums of the Year revelations late into December. This all depends on whether we can finally put out that folklore Legend Has It… Tier List, should Preemo & Nas Escobar actually come through with their joint to close out the iconic Mass Appeal Records series this upcoming 12th December. If you’re reading this after said timestamp—joke’s clearly on us.

Let’s dig it. The first offering we’d want to hold space for is none other than misunderstood Britpop soul crooner Richard Ashcroft’s Lovin’ You. Marking his seventh solo studio exploit—and sporting a surreal front cover that can only be described as so purposefully bad that it’s good—the 10-track LP comes out on the heels of seven years without any new collection of original songs. Well, the 54-year old English singer/songwriter and former Verve-frontman couldn’t have engineered a more triumphant return than stepping onto stadium stages as the opener for his old mates in Oasis on their 2025 world reunion tour. And yet, the astute Ashcroft wasn’t there to simply wax and coast on Britpop nostalgia alone. He immediately set the tone right outta the gate with “Lover”—a buoyant, sprawling, and euphoric R&B-leaning groove that aptly captures the relatively uplifting, genre-salad spirit of Lovin’ You as a whole.

Congruently, the project remains filled with life-affirming choruses, wide-open love songs, and even daring flirtations with dance music that spotlight one of alternative pop’s most soulful voices sounding as timeless and open-hearted as ever. Lovin’ You is a near-all killer no filler 43-minute affair; a record made by a veteran rocker who’s clearly tuned into contemporary vibes and mood. “I’m a Rebel,” moulded by Swiss guest producer Mirwais, is a sleek, Prince-esque, French-touch-inflected cut that pushes Ashcroft’s falsetto into ecstatic new territory. The title track, meanwhile, plays along the vibes of his storm-tossed solo classic “A Song for the Lovers” reimagined and re-tooled through a modern hip-hop-beat sensibility. Still, fans of his Urban Hymns troubadour side will feel right at home with the late-night intimacy of “Find Another Reason” and “Live with Hope,” cuts that reach for the strings-infused cinematic sweep and gospel-tinged warmth of trademarked early-’70s Rolling Stones ballads. Geezer’s cut from a stained glass mountain.

Son of Spergy, the fourth studio album by Canadian Neo-soul torchbearer Daniel Caesar, is the pleasant surprise of the recommendation bunch. Admittedly never on his rotation in our newsrooms, the 30-year old Republic recording artist mostly entered our orbit by way of his excellent work with Tyler, the Creator. For an artist raised in the pews, Caesar has consistently seemed more driven by the pursuit of spiritual communion with his listeners than by the trappings of fame. Ahead of releasing his latest album, a gorgeous and ethereal spiritual successor to Frank Ocean‘s Blonde, he betrayed his reticence to glamour by staging impromptu park shows across multiple cities, appearing with little more than an acoustic guitar—a fitting warm-up to what is being lauded as his most personal, unguarded record yet. Named in tribute to his gospel-singer father, Son of Spergy serves as a backdrop space for Caesar to revisit family bonds, old romances, and his church roots. “Lord, let your blessings rain down,” he pleads on album opener “Rain Down” while supported by the ever spiritually awakened Sampha, in a nebulous, devotional tune that establishes the album’s deeply introspective arc.

Divorcing from more beat-heavy, experimental textures explored in past projects, this new exploit leans into something both earthier and more abstract at once: stripped-back roots influences that the Toronto-native upcycles into dreamy, lush vignettes like “Have a Baby (With Me)” and the Bon Iver–featuring album standout “Moon“: a track of the year contender whose soft jazz piano coasts through a gentle acoustic arrangement like a quiet drizzle. Nonetheless, Son of Spergy isn’t all meditative glow and religious recentering, with Caesar stretching creatively well beyond the canonical borders of traditional R&B. “Call on Me” erupts as a rambunctious curveball, merging jagged alt-rock riffs with a reggae pulse, while “Baby Blue” is a blissfully woozy lullaby that unravels into delightful oddity over six minutes of sample bonanza—folding in warped strings, spliced vocals, and playful sound effects with the wandering spirit of a fearless creator.

Let’s get into some bona fide rap with Big L. In the story of New York hip-hop, hell of hip-hop at large, L Corleone undoubtedly stands as one of the culture’s most enduring and influential voices. Though the Harlem luminary released just a single studio album during his tragically brief life—1995’s Lifestylez ov da Poor & Dangerous—his fingerprints can be retrieved all over the work of countless rappers who followed. A few posthumous releases have surfaced over the last 25 years, including the DJ Premier–helmed The Big Picture, but his latest on Mass Appeal, Harlem’s Finest: Return of the King, feels like the definitive final word on his artistic prowess. Less a mixtape than a compilation in shape and spirit, this fifth and final studio effort by Big L consists of unreleased remastered tracks and rare freestyles, carefully curated by Nas’s stewardship alongside a slew of rotating producers all adding their own trademark tags and sounds to it.

In keeping with the material’s provenance and gestation, Big L’s vernacular occasionally dips back into the slang and sharp-edged bravado of his ’90s rap milieu. Yet, the overall artistic merit and staying power of his writing elevates this 16-track tape far above the usual posthumous grab-bag compilations often hastily assembled after an artist’s passing. The project’s seamless blend of eras, recording environments, and topical narratives—fueled by its inclusive production choices and guest lists—plays a big part in this standing toe-to-toe with the best rap body of work released this year by MCs who are not six-feet-under. To this end, guest slots from longtime peers like Diggin’ in the Crates Crew-co-founder Showbiz and fellow Children of the Corn-member Herb McGruff sit comfortably alongside contributions from heirs to his pen and school of thought, including Joey Bada$$ on “Grants Tomb ’97” and Mac Miller on “Forever,” which opens with a rare and heartfelt verse from the similarly prematurely departed Pittsburgh, PA-native: an unmistakable nod to the wide reach of Big L’s influence. Still, it’s the inclusion of some of his most legendary freestyle sessions—complete with an iconic tag-team moment with JAY-Z—that truly cements this release as essential listening.

Smaller in both scope and reach, we’d be remiss if we didn’t shout out Reuben Vincent & 9th Wonder’s soulful hip-hop classic chops on WELCOME HOME, an hour-long collab joint out on the accomplished record selector’s Jamla Records and distributed by Roc Nation. A meeting of the North Carolinian minds, the project sounds timeless and meticulously constructed. 9th Wonder’s lavish, lush, and glossy beats are aptly complemented by the 25-year old Charlotte-born MC’s robust wordplay and articulation throughout. From the airy and watery “HOMECOMING” kicking the dances off, to the gospel-tinged crystalline “IN MY LIFE” bookending the album, this thing alights at so many highlights along its 16-cuts tracklist, not least through the co-sign of guests such as Ab-Soul, Dinner Party, and Raphael Saadiq. Don’t let this slip by you—it’s salt of the earth.

A brief rock-adjacent intermezzo breaking up the rap dominance here comes in the form of Taking Back Sunday‘s John Nolan-curated Music for Everyone, Vol. 2 compilation. Following eight years after the first instalment, the generous 27-track Vol. 1, this second chapter carries on in that spirit as it continues to benefit and support the American Civil Liberties Union. Assembled and released in partnership with Philly-based Born Losers Records, the 19-track mixtape features both original and reworked numbers by letlive., Fuckin Whatever, as well as “The Pattern“, a Taking Back Sunday throwaway that sounds just as if Tidal Wave and 152 had a sonic love child. Naturally a bit of a hodgepodge in terms of sounds and styles, some of the highlights include At the Drive In-spinoffs Sparta’s “Fight With Love“, Modern Chemistry’s foray into synth pop on “Crybaby“, as well as lead curator John Nolan’s very own swan song contribution with the fitting climactic coda with “There’s No Hate Like Christian Love“.

Alright—let’s wrap this thing up with Q4’s pièce de résistance: De La Soul’s Cabin in the Sky, Mass Appeal’s penultimate Legend Has It… drop and handily one of the most highly anticipated hip-hop releases this year. What is there to say about the American rap group that hasn’t been said before? Across a near 40-year career marked by both innovation and adversity, the Long Island trio has always found a way to endure. Even the heartbreaking loss of co-founder Dave Jolicoeur aka Trugoy the Dove in 2023—just as the group’s long-unavailable Tommy Boy LPs were finally being digitally reissued and restored—didn’t halt their momentum. Defiantly, surviving members Vincent ‘Maseo’ Mason and Kelvin ‘Posdnuos’ Mercer felt a renewed responsibility to continue in his spirit. Cabin in the Sky, the group’s first studio album in nine years clocking it at seventy minutes of new material, sports a title that gestures toward big, existential questions about what awaits beyond this life. Faithfully, all three members appear throughout the record, with Trugoy’s presence woven deeply into its fabric.

Such a commitment to perseverance and endlessness resonates strongly on the first musical joint “YUHDONTSTOP,” situating the eventuality of ending the group as something inseparable from the loss of Dave himself—an idea neither surviving member is willing to entertain. By and large, joy and pain are emotional poles that surface across the whole 20-track album, supported by production from longtime collaborators and heavyweights like the aforementioned DJ Premier, Jake One, and Supa Dave West. Several cuts on Cabin in the Sky actually originated from a separately plotted Pete Rock joint project, including the meditative “Palm of His Hands” and frisky lead single “The Package.” A who’s who of luminaries joins De La in honoring both the life that was lived and the future still unfolding. Amongst many others, Black Thought, Q-Tip, and Nas all commit their sets of devotional bars to wax; while Killer Mike delivers a touching tribute to motherhood on “A Quick 16 for Mama”; and Common and Slick Rick breathe new life into a latter’s rap staple on the tastefully uplifting “Yours.” All together, they help send Trugoy off with grace, while illuminating a path forward for a group still bursting with creative potential as they carry his ever enduring legacy beyond the cabin’s stratosphere.

These are the records. This is this year’s Thanksgiving.

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

I USED TO BE IN TAKING BACK SUNDAY | 2025-01-24

This site started a decade ago because of Taking Back Sunday. For God’s sake, its name is literally a portmanteau of two songs off their 2009 studio LP New Again, “Everything Must Go” and “Swing“. As Mark O’Connell, the muscular longtime drummer of the band, announced his departure over ‘creative differences’ and a ‘lack of support’ earlier this month, it felt like a proper watershed moment for the Long Island outfit. Following the similarly unceremonious split from founding rhythm guitarist Eddie Reyes back in 2018, Mark’s quitting strikes as the kind of coup de grâce that would do in any mainstream group. That said, not only did Taking Back Sunday not yet comment on the fan-favorite stickman’s breaking news, but they instead doubled down by announcing a 2025 North American co-headlining tour with Coheed and Cambria in the ensuing days.

This turn of events leaves lead singer Adam Lazzara as the sole member having been present on every single major studio album since their seminal emo-rock debut Tell All Your Friends in 2002. Harkening back all the way to the band’s founding in 1999, a whooping eleven musicians have been in Taking Back Sunday in some official capacity at one point or another. And this excludes staple touring members such as Nathan Cogan—accompanying the band as live guitarist since 2010—as well as one Mitchell Register, who incidentally stepped in to sub Mark on percussions for most of last year’s live dates. Yet what’s worse than the New York alt rock veterans’ silence over O’Connell’s exit, are the looming slights and innuendos peppered throughout the drummer’s Instagram profile, leading to assume plenty of resentment and unfinished business toward the remaining members.

What’s more, Mark’s mention of the group’s lack of support on his journey to sobriety lurks back to similar sentiments expressed by Eddie Reyes in the years following his own departure, citing multiple times the need to step away from the band’s environment in order to stay true to teetotalism. A particular recent instance that comes to mind—and one that might’ve tipped the scale for Mark, considering he was still part of the official line up then—was Taking Back Sunday’s surprising partnership with whiskey manufacturer Three Chord Bourbon for a special edition blend just in time for the holidays. In truth, that was only the last of a recent spat of questionable business decisions the outfit had been making. It all started with that Steve Aoki collab and remix stunt a few years ago, followed by getting billed for a host of cringeworthy nostalgia-stricken festival appearances. Even the choice of mainstream pop vagabond Tushar Apte as executive producer for their latest eight studio LP 152 raised more than one eyebrow among the fanbase. Luckily, that bet pan out better than expected.

Another loaded and duplicitous move the band made recently was the decision to reunite with former cult lead guitarist Fred Mascherino for the first time in 17 years at their latest Holidays shows at Starland Ballroom, New Jersey. Obviously, speculation runs amok as to what such an olive branch might mean—and one’s to wonder whether it was another one that foreshadowed Mark’s decision to quit a couple weeks later. Mascherino notoriously split from the line-up in acidic terms back in 2007, while Taking Back Sunday was arguably at their peak mainstream fame, following the release of their Billboard-charting record Louder Now. As of this writing, no official announcements have been made by the TBS entourage to back such theory up; their line-up is presently being broadcast as only featuring Lazzara, lead guitarist John Nolan, and bassist Shaun Cooper. Yet, considering that the second guitarist spot has been vacant since the departure of Eddie Reyes—only made worse by the unjustifiable lack of promotion of Nathan Cogan as core member—bringing Mascherino back into the fold wouldn’t be so unthinkable anymore.

No more Mark O’Connell hurts, though. He was not only the longest running member of the band, but also one of its most important songwriting contributors. Often unsung and underrated, in spite of his indispensable role behind the drum kit, the 43-year old Long Island native was actually the author of some of the outfit’s most iconic opening guitar riffs, such as “Cute Without the E” and “This Is All Now“. It’s thus no surprise to learn that he wasted little time to announce his new solo venture—having released his hardcore punk debut single “Brain Dead” on New Year’s Eve, off a yet-to-be-announced project titled When I Grow Up. On it, the former TBS member appears to be playing every instrument and even lend vocal duties to tape—in a twist of creative fate that would make a young Dave Grohl extremely proud.

Mark appears to be serious in his new solo endeavor, too. He’s been spotted shopping around for label representation in recent days, and even seen recording new music with Reyes himself as part of a few Stories shared on Instagram. On top of the aforementioned “Brain Dead”, he’s also already shared either full recordings or teaser snippets of a number of additional records already in the can. These include one titled “Crazy“, “Follow the Money“, a not-so-veiled diss addressed to Taking Back Sunday frontman Adam Lazzara (…), a slower ballad called “Better“, as well as a catchy earworm dubbed “Same Old Story“. Withholding judgment on the inherent quality of these recordings, this feels like something Mark needs to do now, in order to work through the motions that leaving a successful rock and roll band after a quarter of a century entail. We’re here for it, and genuinely happy for him.

With regards to Taking Back Sunday, well this ain’t their or our first rodeo. Half a dozen different official band formations over the span of a little over twenty years are a lot to take in, but at the same time they have also provided for a consistently excellent and varied back-catalog. The assumption is that their recent deal with Fantasy Records—the Concord-distributed California imprint that issued their long-awaited 152 album after the dissolution of their previous agreement with Hopeless Records at the turn of the 2020s—might stipulate the fulfillment of multiple studio albums as part of its terms. However, if we’ve learned anything as fans of Lazzara and co. over the past couple decades, it’s that Taking Back Sunday is a pretty monolith band. When they tour, they just tour. When they meet up in the studio to write new material, they just write new material. Considering the previously mentioned time on the road in the USA starting this summer, it’s unlikely Adam, John, and Shaun can find the time to dish out something concrete in terms of new sound recordings before then. It’s not exactly smooth sailing over at the TBS camp right now.

As far as we’re concerned, the best we can hope is that regardless of whether it’s coming from Taking Back Sunday or Mark O’Connell, it’s the music that will do the talking. That’s what this rotating group of individuals has always done best. They and their management are most welcome to take all the time they need. Hell, we’d happily wait another eight years for their next release, if that meant that’s what’s right for the music. We’ll even go ahead and chalk that recent string of corny decisions up to the collective derangement brought about by the 2020 global pandemic. All is forgiven. The next time we’re writing about the whole entire reason this website even exists in the first place, it better be with some new tunes.

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

ALEX REVIEWS MUSIC (ARM): TBS – 152 | 2023-10-28

Taking Pop Sunday. After almost 2,600 days since the release of Tidal Wave in 2016, Long Island alt rockers Taking Back Sunday choose modern pop over alternative, making their triumphant return to the scene with 152. And it worked wonders. Eight years of absence is a lengthy time off for any musician, all the more so for a band approaching a quarter of a century of age—and boy did a revolution and a half take place during those years. Both societally and for the band members. Inter alia, the American outfit celebrated the twentieth birthday of both the band as a whole (2019) and their trailblazing studio debut Tell All Your Friends (2022) with corresponding deluxe record reissues, peppered one-off non-album singles here and there—including a cover of Weezer‘s “My Name Is Jonas“, an improbable co-sign with the Wu Tang Clan, and the late-stage emo wet dream “Love You a Little” assisting both The Maine and Charlotte Sands—and let go their longtime founding member Eddie Reyes (2018). Crucially, considering how their second coming of a self-titled turned out to be, last year TBS also unexpectedly partnered with megastar DJ Steve Aoki, an unlikely long shot that yielded the sticky and defiant dance-rock number “Just Us Two“.

Such a link up was a sole degree of separation from glossy pop production extraordinaire Tushar Apte, who ended up getting enlisted to orchestrate and execute the group’s eight studio album in its entirety. Side-kicked by Neal Avron on mixing engineering duties, the Australian sound crafter—whose previous production pedigree includes BTS, Blackpink, Nicki Minaj, and Adam Levine amongst others—ended up exerting a perhaps greater musical moulding than any other producer TBS previously worked with. Each of the ten records bundled as part of this full length is enveloped in a thick membrane of sanitization unprecedented for the outfit. Even on grittier and more punk-adjacent cuts, such as the fierce and galloping second and forth single respectively (“S’old“ and “Keep Going“), there permeates a layering of lavishness as well as a tender loving care for sound that only a mystical mind such as Apte’s could instil into the pioneering alt rock quartet’s imprint. Conversely, a juxtaposition contributing to arguably the single biggest success factor of this project, lead singer Adam Lazzara’s lyrical flair remained as disarrayed and perturbed as ever, aptly demonstrated on the aforementioned fourth teaser track: “You could forget about the devil / But the devil won’t forget about you / Just because you’re winning / That don’t mean you’ve got nothing to lose“.

As a whole, 152 sounds big, expansive, and very polished. Musically and recording-wise, this half hour and change committed to tape stands as an outing more akin to the latest Thirty Seconds to Mars record, than say this year’s Paramore or Foo Fighters rock and roll canon offerings. Yet once again, perhaps counterintuitively, this is not a bad thing for TBS. For they pulled this off. With the benefit of twenty-twenty hindsight, the electronic and dance-affine sonic leakages on “Just Us Two” last year now resplend as a true blue litmus test for it all—a canary in the coalmine of sorts. Two of the album’s highlights, the gentle soft pop touch of “Lightbringer” at number seven and climactic soaring coda “The Stranger“, are washed up in synthesisers, clean effects, and pitch-correctors. This is something flat out unthinkable if one is to call back to their last record in time Tidal Wave—a no-frills affair dabbling in early punk tendencies and heartland rock inclinations. Well, perhaps unpopularly so, 152 is an overall better album than Tidal Wave.

Don’t take it from us, you ask the core fans. Correcting for recency bias handicap, their reception and hype so far for the new record seem to be at their most glowing since the quartet’s 2011 self-titled, a record that brought the original Tell All Your Friends line-up back together—drafted today counting Lazzara on vocal duties, John Nolan on guitars/keyboards/BVs, Shaun Cooper on bass guitar, and Mark O’Connell on drums and percussions. Case in point, as part of the Concord-distributed Fantasy Record’s sneak peek listening party that took place a few days before the album’s street date on 27th October, the label saw itself forced to go back for seconds to give the full playthrough another unplanned spin, on the heels of thunderous positive vox populi in webchat. Having attended said event first-hand, we can attest that particularly the aforementioned “Lightbringer” and the sticky groove of Spotify SEO-finessing “New Music Friday” struck as immediate first-listen standouts (aside of course from the four previously available singles).

Clocking in as the shortest LP in TBS’s discography—Tidal Wave, their longest, has almost twenty more minutes of material by comparison—152 is groomed by mainstream pop formulas through and through. Fascinatingly, there seems to be a runtime sweet spot optimized around 3:15 of playback, with as many as six out of ten tracks adopting the format—if this isn’t pop craftsmanship down to a T, then we don’t know what is. Even more intriguingly so, all these songs happen to make up the core backbone of the record, by being evenly woven along the ten-slotted tracklist. As a net positive externality, less constrained than inspired by similar machinery blueprints, Lazzara and Nolan found ways to muster up enough wherewithal to step up their lyrical game. Whether it’s post-mess up regret bars on the musically lukewarm intro “Amphetamine Smiles” (“Half-drunk Messiah with a smile on her face / She told me not to take them pills / I said “Girl, you got no faith in medicine“), romantic liberation on arena-sized lead single “The One” (“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“), or free mundane mad libs-like associations on “Quit Trying” (“Something safe words make you vibrant / Northern lightning, ultra violet / I just quit trying“).

With all that being said, the best song on the album is “I Am the Only One Who Knows You“. Sequenced halfway through at number five, the tune not only has the most convincing songwriting at its core, but everything enveloping it, from its execution to individual performances and production, is of a spotless persuasion as well. On the track, lines such as “Keep ’em out, let ’em in / Unrepentant, unforgiven / Holy hell, high heaven / It’s a destination wedding” and “Give a smile, give a nod, find yourself / Find your god, holy hell / Tell yourself it’s a match made in heaven” transcend even the most literate of Lazzara’s sometimes corny lyrical leanings of the past, thrusting them into more legitimate poetic waxing conversations. Meanwhile, Apte’s white glove production is ethereal, formidable, and immaculate. As a big plus, something about this cut’s X factor makes it one of (if not the) most easily listenable songs in the band’s entire catalogue—no matter a listener’s walk of life. Sure-fire classic potential, hands down.

Yet by no means is this a pitch perfect album. While not enough credit could possibly ever be given to TBS for going so pop with this—lest we forget, they had something to the effect of a scene crown on their emo veteran heads to lose—there are lowlights to be found on this thing. For one, album opener “Amphetamine Smiles” feels like a misstep placed where it is, at least musically. This is the one instance where Apte’s radio-ready production chops didn’t translate as well on a creatively raw, acoustic, and soulfully unplugged composition. It’s also neither fish nor fowl as it builds up into a more traditionally rock track on its back-end, never quite managing to shake off a somewhat subpar packaging. We would’ve loved to have heard this on Tidal Wave instead. Along similar lines, the intentional pop dimension adopted on 152—led by such guiding principles as brevity, punch, and conciseness—could’ve caused certain tracks to leave listeners wanting more from them. Particularly on “Lightbringer” and the undeniably sticky “Juice 2 Me” as penultimate on the tracklist, the feeling is that both could’ve used more fleshing out, and that an even better song lurked beneath the glossier surface of theirs that ended up making the cut.

No harm, no foul—overall, for TBS this is not just an A for effort, but it’s also an A- in execution and output. Handily one of their best albums hitherto. Undoubtedly an outlier in the band’s discography. Here’s to hoping Adam, John, Shaun, and Mark keep on leaning in, pushing this new-found creative endeavour further and further in projects to come, without taking another eight years whilst at it. After all, TBS is back with new material after almost a decade (without the influence), their handsome faces are slapped on the album’s front cover for the first time, and in Fantasy they have finally found a record label that genuinely supports and elevates them. Chances are they now feel comfortable enough to keep scratching their true artistic itches going forward—irrespective of scene, industry, and peer pressures. For what it’s worth, best we can do as fans is to keep not treating TBS like a stranger.

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

152

2023, Fantasy Records

https://takingbacksunday.com

ONE-FIVE-TWO | 2023-08-31

2,597 days. That’s how much time will have passed since the release of Taking Back Sunday‘s last album Tidal Wave in 2016 by the time their eight studio project 152 comes out on 27th October. Announced yesterday in conjunction with their defiant and rabid second lead single “S’old“, the LP is slated to feature a scant ten songs, clocking in at just about half an hour and change of new music—officially making this their shortest album to date (for comparison, their seminal and raw emo-punk 10-track 2002 debut Tell All Your Friends is a whole two minutes longer). That is like around four minutes of new music on average for every year that has passed since Tidal Wave. Not exactly freehanded, but we’ll take it.

Riding on the fresh and reinvigorated coattails of the soaring and anthemic comeback single “The One” from a few months ago, the full length reveal broke the ice by way of injecting more speed and grittiness in earnest into the Long Islanders’ projected sound to come. Once again produced by radio-pop mainstay Tushar Apte (a connection via last year’s co-sign Steve Aoki, as it recently transpired) and mixed by Neal Avron, new cut “S’old” increases both pace and aggression compared to its softer and perhaps more agreeable predecessor, all the while relishing in a degree of carelessness rarely seen displayed by lead singer Adam Lazzara before: “You’re going to get s’old / You’re going to get so old / You’re gonna get so old either way“.

Undoubtedly, this second teaser packs a tighter and more nostalgic punch than “The One”, yet succeeds in couching enough of a lyrical arc into itself that ends up becoming even more gratifying, in spite of its shorter runtime—this both cathartically and lyrically: “Science never lies it only learns / I could use a bit of both / A little less your high hopes / A little more your love“. Standing as a spiritual love child between something off the edgiest moments on Happiness Is and Tidal Wave‘s “Death Wolf“, the exploit’s fierce delivery does not come at the expense of melody or replay value. Judging from these first two previews, on account of the somewhat unprecedented range displayed on them, most bets are off as to how the rest of the material on 152 is going to sound like.

That is, aside from the more surface-level remark about seven years having gone by since Tidal Wave (making this the largest gap between any two Taking Back Sunday releases to dare), a whole lot of life has happened for the band and its members in-between. For starters, there was Twenty in 2019, their career retrospective compilation celebrating twenty years as a band while keeping in touch with two previously unheard bonus tracks. Then there was the experimental, off-the-beaten path, vocal-only, lockdown-imposed side project Fuckin Whatever—we’re still owed some more explanation that can’t be chalked up to the pandemic cabin fever. Most importantly for the band, there was the departure of storied founding member and longtime rhythm guitarist Eddie Reyes in 2018. The umpteenth line-up change impacting the alt rock outfit, now officially a quartet (Adam Lazzara, John Nolan, Shaun Cooper, and Mark O’Connell).

In an attempt to make some sense of it all, their new US West Coast imprint Fantasy Record summarizes said ebbs and flows permeating the last seven years as catalysts for an album “[i]nspired by the long layoff and the cloud of uncertainty that blanketed the world (and music industry) these past few years”. Continuing by stating how “152 stands among the most genuinely reflective and emotionally pure efforts of Taking Back Sunday’s illustrious career“. Self-indulgent record industry jargon notwithstanding, a similar earnest sentiment seems to come straight from the horses’ mouth:

152 offers a lot more hope and light than we first realized when we were in the thick of it, putting it all together. We’ve been fortunate enough, through our music, to grow up with a lot of people going through the same things at the same time, and probably feeling the same way. Our hope is that you’re able to find a little bit of yourself in this new collection of songs, because you’re not alone, and neither are we.

You would think after 20 years, we knew what each other is going to do. But there were so many times making this record where I heard the initial idea and thought I knew where it would go, but then I was super surprised. It’s those kinds of surprises that make it so exciting. That’s why we all still want it so badly.

When we’re writing songs, the one thing we ask ourselves, ‘Is it capable of making people feel something?’ You try to make people feel emotion. That’s the one goal we went in with, and we think we did it.

In short: this thing is riddles with incognitos. Fantasy is a brand new label for the band (their fourth), putting out, amongst others, Americana, jazz, and R&B. Australia’s very own Tushar Apte is an unchartered and frankly unlikely choice to executively produce what’s arguably the most highly anticipated project of their career. For context, his production pedigree hitherto includes Chris Brown, Demi Lovato, and Nicki Minaj—not exactly scene pals to the emo rockers. And yet, there’s the 152. Even the occasional Taking Back Sunday fan knows about its symbolism and semantic, and in all likelihood has sculpted their own version of what it truly means. For what it’s worth, Fantasy saw fit to set the record straight by providing a somewhat diplomatic and collectively agreed upon answer, explaining how Exit 152 is “the section of road in North Carolina between Highpoint, Chapel Hill, and Raleigh where the band and their friends would meet up as teenagers“.

Regardless of what version one runs with, the lore surrounding 152 almost seems like the only familiar through line die hard fans can still cling on to, for now. Amidst so much wind of change for the New York group, another two months of patient wait before getting the full body of work looms as an agonizing gust at best. Here’s to hoping another teaser will see the light of day between now and late October. The boys seem very excited about the new record: they’ve been testing as many as the aforementioned two cuts off it live during their recent US headlining run at Sad Summer Fest—something almost unheard of for the band. What’s for sure is that, by and large, Taking Back Sunday has grown up. And that can’t but be a comforting beacon to rely on, still after so long.

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

ALEX REVIEWS MUSIC (ARM): TAKING BACK SUNDAY – THE ONE | 2023-06-30

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

ALEX REVIEWS MUSIC (ARM): ALEX G, A$AP ROCKY, BLACK THOUGHT & TBS SINGLES | 2022-06-19

As the feel good heat of the Western Hemisphere summer nears and approaches arts patrons the world over, so it seems a brand new sorcerous episodic ARM segment touching down on a gauntlet of unrelated and loose singles accompanied by rapid (vapid?), forthright, passionate, and gate-kept opinions. It is a jolly and momentous round up of enthusing one-off, lead, and follow-up records alike—in some cases anticipating a pre-announced full album release, whilst in others simply dangling the pendulum of disparate speculation and excitement for more to come in front of thirsty music pundits’ noses. A few of these are long-awaited, highly-anticipated returns to form, others flat out surprise drops, all with the addition of a perhaps once unthinkable crossover no one really asked for, yet in twenty-twenty (surgery) hindsight of its release genuinely asserting its rhyme and reason.

Philadelphia-native and 2000s lo-fi indie royalty Alex G does truly appear to be back on his dragged feet as of late, following almost three years of near noble silence since offering the mystical, God-forsaken, and form-less art pop exploit House of Sugar—a quasi-benchmarking essay in late stage capitalism’s induction to morph purposeful noise and tender melody in a hodgepodge of feels. Mere months ago, the 29-year-old Domino Recording Company talent showed up and delivered on the unlikely role of principal scorer for Jane Schoenbrun’s coming-of-age horror drama We’re All Going to the World’s Fair soundtrack. The Utopia-distributed, Sundance Film Festival-premiered feature-length film comes through attached to a glowing, foreboding, and glacial 13-track OST album, wholly curated by Alex G. Such an extra-curricular outing by the normally insular and elusive singer/songwriter features both a “Main Theme” opener and an “End Song” coda reprising the motion picture’s primary musical and lyrical undercurrent. Both manage to effortlessly gallop alongside the frail and cathartic razor’s edge courtesy of the Frank Ocean-protégé’s trademark musical ethos. Bone-less bendings leaning from the edge of gloomy bedroom pop leakages atop of a self-deprecating throne. Pure, raw, and untouched Alex G canon.

Perhaps more relevantly, just weeks after the release of said full OST project, the six-string troubadour saw fit to also dish out what for all intents and purposes oughta be considered the first real lead single from his yet to be announced forthcoming ninth studio album cycle. Unveiled officially on 23rd May, “Blessing“‘s three minutes and change of uncut 90s alt-rock-borrowed distortion, mixed with a tight straightforward rhythm section, comes and goes as a flickering tide of melting sonic verses and intelligently woven counterpoint melodies—delivered in a suspiciously forlorn beck-and-call whispering mode that results ever so out of place vis-a-vis the balls to the wall synth layering earmarking the cut’s post-chorus, or outro. Deceivingly enough though, the singular tune wonderfully sticks its experimental landing, and actually proves to render itself more and more memorable with time, unfolding ounces of sticky and addictive replay value with each listen: it’s esprit d’escalier galore if there ever was one.

Meanwhile, Lord Pretty Flacko himself blessed the mainstream hip-hop lore with the comeback hit single “D.M.B.” (aka DAT$ MAH B!*$H) earlier in May—a hallucinating chopped-and-screwed tape-mounting experience masquerading as his very personal joie de vivre ode to both narcotics and women, to be understood as fitting marijuana and Rihanna’s descriptions. The experimental number was first teased online as part of an advertisement for disgraced Swedish fintech company Klarna as far back as summer last year, and is slated to be appearing on A$AP Rocky’s speculative and crowdsourcedly-named forthcoming fourth studio album, ALL $MILES. Sonically, the RCA Records-earmarked song is a warped and invertebrate psychedelic rap cloud of multi-layered overdubs, spanning viscous samples, a sweet and endearing electric guitar lick, as well as an expansive and spastic drum machine syncopation—sporting the joint venture trademark production of a slew of co-signs including grime heavyweight Skepta and D33J.

Soaked and buttered in many of the stylistic aesthetic inklings prevalent on his formidable last major project Testing—coasting through everything from sly vocal manipulation to phasers set to stun—”D.M.B.” reveres in a ridiculously elliptical and hivemind hook (“Roll my blunt, fill my cup, be my bitch / Hold my gun, load it up, count my slugs / Yeah, they don’t know nothin’ / Roll my blunt, be my bitch / They don’t know nothin’) and rises above the fray by way of the endulced, serenading, and heavenly bridge kicking in 2:40 minutes into the track: “Baby / It’s been a little time since we both / Felt full since our first encounter / And baby / Don’t let another n**** try my baby / Girl you know I’m one call away / It’s nothin’ / And baby / My angel and my Goddess, when my head get clouded / You’re my soulmate, my Goddess / And baby / Took a little time in a gray place / For nothing, nothing“.

Elsewhere, it is a bona fide meeting of the underground hip-hop minds the one that finds 44-year old musician, songwriter and record producer Danger Mouse sculpt modularly poignant tapestries of soulful spine-bending backtrack beats for the unparalleled and envelope-pushing wordsmithing craft of The Roots’ mainstay MC Black Thought. Cheat Codes, the brand new back-to-back collaborative LP set for release at the tail end of summer, sees its anticipatory lead up campaign already in full steam mode inasmuch as two abstract and elusive teasers unveiled ahead of its full street date on 12th August. “No Gold Teeth”’s cleverly laced, dramatically sensual samples paved the promotional way with a somewhat soft surprise drop in early May, piercing through with Black Thought’s both life-affirming and tongue-in-cheek sixteens alike. Lending a substantial urgency to every verse, the joint ushers into gangster territory in a ‘heat of the moment’ fashion, hitting a runtime cul-de-sac before one quite wishes to realise, despite its formal two minutes and a half of clockwork.

A few months later—and sequenced right after the aforementioned dental blonde on the full length’s tracklist—the dusty and rough-around-the-edges stream of posse consciousness inertia encapsulated by “Because” significantly upped the realness ante. Trading fierce and inflammatory flows navigating through a smokey, cavernicolous, and woody production whilst periodically getting re-centered by Dylan Cartlidge’s affable refrain, Philadelphia-native Tariq Luqmaan Trotter, Joey Bada$$, and Russ get (listeners) in meticulous line and build upon each other’s pamphlet of maximes and truisms about notions of survival of the blackest/fittest as well as success’ fatalist nature. With such additional guests poised to be featured on Cheat Codes‘ remaining joints as the above A$AP Mob leader Rocky, the late MF DOOM, as well as A-list rap collective spinoffs like Run the Jewels and Griselda Records’s very own Conway the Machine, it’s safe to say that the anticipation is running high for what might well turn out to be one of the most essential hip-hop listens of the year.

Lastly, there are so many ways in which a Taking Back Sunday and Steve Aoki collaboration could have gone terribly, irreparably wrong in 2022. Out of the myriad of parallel universes that cohabitate our existence, it’s both baffling and flabbergasting that the one graced by our very own human sentient presence would have been the one to gestate it. And to think that it’s not that TBS were scraping their creative barrel out of content saturation anxiety as of late. On the contrary; aside from questionable band anniversary bundles, throwaway acoustic B-sides left on the cutting room floor, a legitimate Weezer cover song, as well as the upteenth reissue of their modern emo classic Tell All Your Friends, the Long Island alt rock veterans have essentially kept quiet and passive for nearly seven years since the straight up no frills alt rock of Tidal Wave. During that time, really nothing much to report—absent the regrettable departure of founding member and rhythm guitarist Eddie Reyes in 2018, their cutting ties with California-based indie Hopeless Records, as well that Fuckin Whatever side supergroup project. Hence why, the improbable outfit pairing between John Nolan, Adam Lazzara, Mark O’Connell, Shaun Cooper and the 44-year old American DJ, record producer, and Dim Mak record executive strikes as all the more haphazard.

Yet amazingly so, the riveting musical joint venture revealed around a week ago on “Just Us Two” panned out strong and convincing throughout. Thankfully, the one-off collab follows admittedly more of a third act Taking Back Sunday trademark formula with the sparkled addition of peppered Aoki flairs on top of it, rather than the other way around. This manifests primarily in the form of the DJ’s bouncy, elastic, and spacious synths playing second fiddle in accompany mode to the odd 6/8 song’s principal edgy refrain (“I remember the way that it felt / I remember the way that it felt / Watched the sun go down / Sitting on your roof / And the air was thick / Yeah our heads were too / Watched the sun come up / Sitting on your roof / Yeah, the air was thick / It was just us two“), as well as the anthemic and triumphant post-chorus group chants. However, one can’t help but feeling like it’s giant shame lost on our zeitgeist’s ears, for if it weren’t for today’s jeopardising goldfish memory span, the latter are made of the stuff that could define a generation: “These are the days / Always remember / These are the days / Always forever“.

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

AV

ALEX G

BLESSING

2022, Domino Recording

http://sandyalexg.com

A$AP ROCKY

D.M.B.

2022, RCA Records

https://www.asapmob.com

BLACK THOUGHT & DANGER MOUSE

CHEAT CODES

2022, BMG Rights Management

https://twitter.com/blackthought

TAKING BACK SUNDAY & STEVE AOKI

JUST US TWO

2022, Dim Mak Records

http://www.takingbacksunday.com

BIG WHATEVER | 2021-05-02

By the looks of it, this next one ahead of us is set to be a kaleidoscopic and densely chromatic summer. At the very least, as far as our musical forecast is concerned. You ask both alt-psych rock supergroup Fuckin Whatever and singer/songwriter Ryan Adams. Amidst recent notable music unveilings, including but not limited to Sir Paul McCartney, The Offspring, and The Blossom, it has emerged that the self-billed “Beach Boys for the nihilist TikTok generation” as well as the Pax Americana Recording Company-founder both saw fit to time the release of their respective highly anticipated forthcoming projects within a week-span from one another, dating early June. Incidentally, both the Taking Back Sunday, Circa Survive, and Grouplove-distilled quartet—composed of selected key members from each of the aforementioned original outfits and responding to a somewhat questionable name—and the American heartland rocker opted for an artistic inclination veered to design and portray their soon-to-be-unwrapped sonic tapestries through tints and tinges aplenty.

Counting Circa Survive’s and Saosin’s Anthony Green, Taking Back Sunday‘s Adam Lazzara and John Nolan, as well as additional percussion from Benjamin Homola of Grouplove amongst its ranks, Fuckin Whatever is a postmodern and analogue side-project gestated throughout longstanding kinships minted as part of the alternative/emo rock scene over the past two decades. The group’s debut self-titled five-cut extended play is out on 4th June on Philadelphia-based boutique imprint Born Losers Records, and features zero—yes, zero—electric or amplified instruments on tape. Co-frontman and Taking Back Sunday vocalist Lazzara clarifies how the record is instead made up of “[…] pretty much 80% mouth noises and 20% Ben slapping things around the house”, hence banking on rudimentary a cappella arrangements and visceral percussive rhythms to paint collective mental and spiritual landscapes made of rainbow-shaded rays and holographic skies.

It thus probably comes as no surprise that all three teasers dropped in anticipation to the full mind-bending gesamtkunstwerk dabble in pretty strong abstract, deconstructed, and psychedelic territory. This is perhaps best exemplified by their trippy and hallucinating lead single “Trash“—revealed to the public under purposefully elusive and mysterious circumstances in early February as part of a decisively understated roll out. Facts started to become clearer around the drop of the band’s second preview cut, coming by way of the funkier and more immediate groove-pop of “I’m Waiting On You“, about a month later. Fastforward to just weeks ago, the rather hippie and free-experimentation quartet—whose inception can be traced as far back as a remote USA parking lot during the 2016 Taste of Chaos tour—released what is poised to be the final taster before the full collection of tracks sees the multicoloured light of day: “Original Sin“. The record also marks the rated-R outfit’s official debut on licensed digital outlets (their first two songs were only made available through DIY platform Bandcamp in alignment to its Bandcamp Fridays initiative), showcasing an even more heightened songwriting sensibility in the guise of arguably the stickiest tune of the three.

On his part, former Whiskeytown-frontman and alt-rock prodigy Ryan Adams seems to have chosen to stick to dropping the reported trilogy of full length LPs he initially announced back in 2019 after all, albeit with a re-tooled roll out sequence. The first in the series, the unplugged-affine Wednesdays, whilst initially slated to be the second one after Big Colors, was actually already surprise-released this past December as the first instalment. Big Colors on the other hand, which was supposed to inaugurate the triplet body of work two years ago, has now officially been recycled and repurposed as what appears to be the principal creative statement of intent for the 46-year old poet, scheduled as second chapter with a worldwide street date pencilled in for 11th June (a third and final double album titled Chris is reported to drop later in the year). Clocking in at just below forty minutes of runtime and spanning twelve cuts in total, the project is shy of three songs that were initially announced to be sequenced on Big Colors when Adams first announced the saga (two of which, “Dreaming You Backwards” and “I’m Sorry and I Love You“, ended up making the cut on Wednesdays, which in turn saw its own tracklisting shrink from the original seventeen to just eleven).

On 23rd April, the hypnotic and ethereal “Do Not Disturb” got lifted from its second tracklisting position and used as first single off the upcoming studio full length by Adams and Pax Am. Standing as the eighteenth solo LP from the singer, the record is fiercely shaping up to employ a host of hazy, sun-soaked, and hollow color schemes in order to refract its outgoing tinctures through the lighthouse it was meant to act as in the first place. In the words of Ryan himself:

Big Colors is the soundtrack to a movie from 1984 that exists only in my soul. It’s a cliché inside a watercolor painting of neon blue smoke rising up off summer streets in the night.

It’s the most New York California album I could cut loose from my musical soul, and for me as both a guitar player and songwriter, this is the zenith point dream time.

While I won’t be able to match this album for its depth and broad color forms in the future, this is the sound of my soul and a door to a place I’ll be returning to again.

The treasures in our past are the shamanic visions of the future when the destination is dream zone 3000. This is that.

I’m only dreaming in Big Colors now.

The above excerpt is clearly paining a broad illustrative brush, though one can’t but rejoice over the blissful electric alignment of summer pigments and tones that both Big Colors and Fuckin Whatever are presently affording us to worship and adore. A radiant, glowing, and iridescent portal through which, all of a sudden, tracking the right mapping to one’s life wholesomeness does not seem too arduous and impenetrable anymore. These are budding creative fragments teaching us that colouring outside the lines is a purpose’s ultimate defiance—the only heightened and levitating cosmic field where black and white are declassed to archaic ends of a continuously superseded dialectic spectrum of movement, light, and electromagnetism. One that, instead, embraces the ultraviolet and the infrared as its lowest common denominators, and transfuses a brave new proto-sphere made of decaying palm trees, dour neon signs, and ephemeral sunsets culminating into a… big whatever one wants it to be.

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

AV

TWENTY-TWENTY SURGERY | 2019-01-12

Yes indeed. It’s true. I was going to entitle this written prose Two Decades Under The Influence, or a similar derivative, toying with the idea of sliding in an intended fan-verified pun, recycling and distorting the title of one of Taking Back Sunday’s most distinguished and memorable cuts repurposing it for recounting the bells and whistles of the New York outfit’s celebrations of twenty years as a rock band. Yet, after stumbling upon one review after another from media outlets and publications on the Interweb employing exactly said double entendre, I profusely discarded the embryonal idea, letting it symbolically escape out of my conceptual editorial window. Don’t get me wrong here, it’s a brilliant and funny witty little joke that addresses and presumably pleases both long-time avid supporters as well as occasional in-n-out “fast-food” listeners of the group, but hey, enough is enough and we all know that even a delicious tomato soup meal can become nauseatingly redundant if repeatedly served every single day. Notwithstanding the above, however, there should at this point be an important content disclaimer for the whole entire esteemed readership willing and wanting to continue progressing with a perusal of the present blogpost; this owned and operated body of text deals with the most influential band on yours truly, a band that started it all for this site – one that even named this web property, for Christ’s sake – and a group whose compositions and performances have even made it onto my very epidermis and heart, straight as an arrow, multiple times.

What one should take away from such an eloquent and explicit warning, I figure, is that a miscellaneous semiotic salad of insider knowledge, pre-existing notions, double entendres, puns, and subtle wordplay references are to be abundantly expected throughout this creative appraisal. For better or worse, whether we like it or not, I can’t help it and you can’t either. It all starts with the title appointment of this post ending up being Twenty-Twenty Surgery, partly honouring a much overlooked and under-appreciated track off Taking Back Sunday’s biggest and most successful album, Louder Now, but mainly inherently implying a birthday wish to the band for as many more years of thriving artistry as the ones they’ve just left behind them. Anyway, I guess this is the final call to provide you all with the newsflash component of this update, before we get irreconcilably lost in digressive by-topical rabbit holes. Yesterday, Friday 11th January 2019, was a majestically important day for Taking Back Sunday. Yesterday, the alternative rockers officially released their fabulous career-retrospective 21-track compilation, dubbed Twenty for the occasion. The LP aims at celebrating and cherishing their best work over a long and accomplished journey as a band, that started at some point back in 1999. This 20th anniversary collection of tracks features shortlisted best-of cuts off all of their seven studio albums, starting from their 2002 seminal and trailblazing angsty emo debut Tell All Your Friends coming all the way to their most recent solid rocker LP Tidal Wave, dropped in 2016 to decent critical acclaim.

What’s gnarly about this compilation is that Taking Back Sunday actually included two brand new songs in it, both written and recorded just after the start of their last tour in support of Tidal Wave a few years ago. The first of two numbers, “All Ready To Go“, doubles as de facto promotional single for the wider release, and sounds very much like a big, dense, stomping amalgamation of all the differently related arena rock sounds the band has been flirting with ever since their 2010 reunion with the original formation, involving founding members John Nolan on guitars and Shaun Cooper on bass (although, to be honest, the track’s sound aesthetics lean more skewedly towards Happiness Is and Tidal Wave, than their 2011 come-back eponymous release). “All Ready To Go” kicks in heavily with a signature Mark O’Connell drum fill beat and a bouquet of water-falling guitars, before making space for a calmer and fuzzy bass-driven verse, flowing into a grand and potent chorus in which lead singer Adam Lazzara warningly shouts “I was livid and you weren’t listening / It didn’t matter cause you were leaving / You were all ready to go / You were all ready to go / You were all ready to go / Already gone“, perhaps uncannily alluding at the recent bittersweet departure of other founding long-time member and rhythm guitarist, Eddie Reyes. Nonetheless, it’s on the second exclusive new track, “A Song For Dan”, that the group seriously sets their artistic phasers to stun, with a sensational and heartfelt piano-led song discussing survival’s guilt and weaving in both an epic structural crescendo and an overall dramatically outstanding vocal performance by Adam:

To switch it up from such a melancholically somber spot, here’s a little piece of trivia for you all: it turns out it was drummer Mark who actually started it all for the track, coming up with the initial rough melodic draft as well as the overarching thematic subject matter the song ended up encapsulating: “You’re too far gone / To know where it goes / And I know you’re not coming home / Done too much wrong to know what’s right / And it’s too late to say goodbye“. Albeit perhaps surprisingly to some, those familiar with the Long Island emo veterans should know that Mark is not new to coming up with excellent and beautiful “early-days” riffs, licks, and motives that provided the backbone foundation for some of Taking Back Sunday’s most convincing and solid songs in their entire discography, such as the punk-rock stunner “Tidal Wave” or the gorgeously dark, vintage, sunburnt gem “This Is All Now“. Maybe it isn’t that surprising after all, that for a seasoned twenty-year-old band, who during the course of its life went through multiple incarnations, transformations, and line-ups – including charismatic scene veterans such as Jesse Lacey, Fred Mascherino, and Eddie Reyes – the longest serving member to date would be that best equipped to faithfully originate and translate the group’s zeitgeist into a sonic consensus that can still speak and resonate in such a captivating way with the audience. A special mention here is also due for frontman Adam – incidentally the other longest active member in the band – who after ramping up on his sound engineering and production knowledge by attending a specific programme on the subject during his spare time, saw fit to double as sound engineer for said two new tracks, saving the quarter a substantial amount of money and awkward producer-artist conversations in the studio.

Obviously, Taking Back Sunday is bringing the whole celebratory shebang on a global album-play tour, whereby for most legs of the live run faith and fortune will decide which combination of their first three albums (Tell All Your Friends, Where You Want To Be, Louder Now) the group is going to perform in full when and in which city. Which brings up a good point, frankly an unavoidable one whenever best-of compilations come into play; namely the quality and nature of the actual shortlist of songs that made the cut for the retrospective musical statement. So, let us get this right: Twenty, despite its name, actually sports twenty-one songs, two of which are the brand new tracks we just went through above. That leaves us with nineteen repertoire songs, split between seven full length albums to choose from. A quick skim through the tracklist reveals how some records (Louder Now, with four tracks) are more represented than others (New Again, self-titled, and Happiness Is only provide two tracks to the compilation). Which is obviously fine and, truth be told, pretty legit and in line with the mainstream fans’ appreciative leitmotiv over the years, let alone the actual commercial success of some of those albums. However, there is one big elephant in the room that oughta be addressed at this stage, since we’re looking back at the whole artistic evolutionary arch of the group: New Again. The album that no one seems to enjoy and fully appreciate, fans and band alike. A personal favourite, but whose recording sessions in the studio were rumoured to be among the hardest and toughest the band ever had, with newbie lead guitarist Matt Fazzi acting as the wild card/odd man out and the unpleasant blather heard sneaking through the grapevine alleging that all of Eddie Reyes’ guitar parts got secretly re-recorded, unbeknownst to most in the camp at the time. New Again was the studio effort supposed to follow the world-wide stirring exceptional success and excellence of Louder Now, only failing miserably both in terms of fans/critical reception and sales.

Look, I always have and forever will carry a ginormous soft spot filled with admiration and adulation for the 2009 LP (read: New Again, for the fast foodies). As far as a full album-listening experience goes, its curated sonic roughness, compositional resilience, patchwork of odd experimental time signatures, aggression of crunchy delivery, sublime guitar/bass work, and lyrical baggage, simply speak to me on a higher level than any other work outputted by the band, full stop. With that being said, I do believe that there are overall better individual songs found elsewhere in the New York outfit’s catalogue. Case in point, Where You Want To Be’s “A Decade Under The Influence“, “This Photograph Is Proof“, or “One-Eighty By Summer“. Still, to me New Again as a full length remains watertight, bullet-proof, and coherently unified from start to finish. Don’t @ on this one, as you wouldn’t even be reading these very lines on this very site if it weren’t the case. Yet all things considered, if Twenty as a collection of tracks walks like a duck, it should quack like a duck, and it is therefore only fair and compliant it faithfully reflects the band’s premiere musical output over the past twenty years in form of a best-of mixtape, in a relatively objective fashion and with the greater mass audience good in mind. With all this said and done: Dear Adam, John, Shaun, and Mark, here’s to another twenty years of marvellous career and success, continuing on your prime path of mending broken hearts, helping us decode relatable life experiences, enlightening darker times. But perhaps more importantly, here’s to maintaining a twenty-twenty vision on your mission to providing warmth and comfort to a myriad of scattered yet unified fans around the globe by way of goddamn good rock and roll tunes. We’re the lucky ones. 152.

I’d like to thank you sincerely for taking the time to read this and I hope to feel your interest again next time. And happiest 20th birthday to Taking Back Sunday this time around.

AV

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ALEX REVIEWS MUSIC (ARM): COLD WAR KIDS – LA DIVINE | 2017-05-01

Hello there y’all. I’ve probably never been more distracted when drafting an ARM blogpost before and this really does come as a warning. I’m in the middle of moving house and country of residence, lord Ryan Adams just dropped a thunderous and tenacious collection of 19 (!) B-sides to his recent, critically acclaimed, and ARM-grilled album Prisoner and, last but definitely not least, Californian soul-punk outfit letlive. split indefinitely two days ago to my overwhelmingly unpleasant surprise. Yet, I really want to gift my musical impressions to the world as well in regards to San Pedro, CA-based indie legends Cold War Kids’ highly anticipated sixth studio album LA Divine, which came out early last month on Friday 7th April.

However, before I dig into the main bit of this piece, I feel I owe letlive. a short, impromptu obituary that will hopefully help demonstrate my love and affection for the band and, most of anything, the impact they’ve had on me. As I spotted their official goodbye statement a couple days ago on my social media feed it was one of those moments where the first thing you do is rub your eyes and re-read the whole thing, just to double- or even triple check that you really saw what you saw. I guess I’ve been quite lucky and fortunate in my musical fandom life so far as I almost never had to go through such a frightening realisation for the bands I love most and I will never betray or forget. Whilst it’s true that Nirvana and The Police, arguably my top favourite musical representations of all time, were actually already defunct and no more by the time I even started getting into them, other major artistic and incredible living influences on me such as Taking Back Sunday, Bruce Springsteen, Pearl Jam or even Blink-182 are all still rocking stronger than ever. Yet letlive., who became an immense part of my life and world-perception around 7 years ago and have gone on deeply affecting me ever since, really feel like the first true, real-time musical abandonment in my life.

Letlive.’s music, energy, devotion, and lyrics all felt to me more urgent and necessary than almost anything else out there, whilst their profound carefulness for longstanding racial and social issues served as endless inspiration to say the least. Moreover, experiencing the Los Angeles-based post-hardcore band live in concert was a whole universe and life-changing occasion of its own, as I humbly tried to account for in this note. Losing them as a musical outfit is an irreplaceable loss not only for my very own artistic spectrum but for the wider alternative and counter-reacting scene as well, as possibly now more than ever the world and music would have needed their protesting rage, insurgent rebellious nature, and willingness to fight back against the establishment. With this I’d just want to thank them for having existed and wish all of the members’ very well in this hard but apparently necessary decision.

II. 2002 – 20XX. F O R E V E R Soul Punx. II._Forever

Back to our regularly scheduled programme, namely Cold War Kids’ latest 14-track effort LA Divine. I kind of have this theory where I think no good and superior art critic should ever review the same artist twice, as I feel doing so would detach them too much from that necessary fresh outlook that tends to kick in when someone is reviewing something for the first time, ultimately swallowing the critic into a subjective, self-reflecting and precedent-leaning rabbit hole that at the end of the day doesn’t benefit anyone. Thus, since I’m not a good and superior art critic myself, I feel ready to blindly omit the fact that almost exactly two years ago I already wrote – rather negatively – about Cold War Kids’ previous record Hold My Home.

The pre-release promotion for LA Divine was a rather ambitious one, with as much as four singles with correspondent music videos released in anticipation of the 44-minute long full-length effort. Incidentally, the San Pedro-native five piece decided to gradually release all first four songs on the tracklist in chronological order, paving the way with sparky and energetic lead single “Love is Mystical” on 2nd February, followed shortly after by the introspective and slower “Can We Hang On?” on 2nd March, and wrapping up with the Bishop Briggs soulful collab “So Tied Up” as well as 5-minute epic “Restless” in short succession just weeks before the full album release. Looking back, this really does feel like an interesting and perhaps counter-intuitive choice, as the four tracks aren’t too dissimilar from each other at all – that is, piano-heavy, chorus-driven bangers that all lean more than one hand in both sounds and vibe towards Cold War Kids’ previous LP Hold My Home – whilst the rest of LA Divine has so much more to offer indeed. Truly noteworthy out of the singles-bucket are the opening track, with its potent intentions in both beat and lyrics, as well as “Restless”, a rather beautiful tribute to Los Angeles and its ability to shape love relationships (“I don’t get jealous, I get free / Everything good comes back to me / It seems like wherever you are / Is just a better place to be“) all embedded in carrying melodies with a groovy piano and catchy verses doing most of the job.

As previously hinted at, this album has way more to offer and enjoy though than its singles (unsurprisingly, given that with its 14 tracks LA Divine marks Cold War Kids’ longest release to date). As our good ol vinyls teach us, this record too is shaped in such a way to be divided into four main bits/themes, sequentially separated by something close to an interlude, or skit, or even filler, depending on what one prefers to call them (“LA River”, “Wilshire Protest”, and “Cameras Always On”). For instance, the first psych/lo-fi interlude “LA River” is followed by what is arguably the album’s most exciting part, with great cuts such as the live-like uplifting “No Reason to Run” as well as the gangstery “Open Up the Heavens”, which presents some of the best vocal harmonies on the whole album and comes with irresistible badass-guitars.

“Luck Down” and “Ordinary Idols” make up the main third bit of LA Divine, with the former being a solid enjoyable indie tune and the most aggressive and sped up cut of the LP, whilst the latter arguably representing one of the dullest and most boring moments, only to be partially saved by quite sublime lyrics (“Why would you idolize me? / There’s nothing I got that you don’t / You keep on fantasizing / I’ll always be the underdog“). It follows the social media/instagram-hysteria critique skit “Cameras Always On”, which then throws the listener to the final part of the record and boy, that is one hell of a closure. Both the gentle and beautiful “Part of the Night” as well as the spacey and ambient-driven “Free to Breathe” make for an excellent wrap up with a rising and extremely inspiring note. This is true especially for closing track “Feel to Breathe”, which sees Cold War Kids at their songwriting best whilst at the same time surprising the listener with unexpected guitar arpeggios and wonderfully sung by frontman Nathan Willett.

Overall, LA Divine might as well be Cold War Kids’ most inspired and coherent album in a decade, with the band’s signature groovy and R&B piano once more dominating all major tracks and undoubtedly entailing some of the band’s best songs ever written (see “Restless”, “Part of the Night”, “Free to Breathe”). Yet, the album does come with highly skippable moments as well (see “Can We Hang On?”, “Ordinary Idols”), while here and there one can’t help but feel like some of the material on this records just sounds a bit too second-hand and recycled from previous work, above all 2013’s Dear Miss Lonelyhearts and 2015’s Hold My Home  (doesn’t “Love is Mystical” sound just like it could’ve come out of the same writing session as Dear Miss Lonelyhearts’ and Hold My Home’s lead singles “Miracle Mile” and “All This Could Be Yours”?). In other words, LA Divine could certainly have benefitted from more guitars and edgy sounds and less predictable piano-formula. It’s a shame, but nothing to despair. Cold War Kids might have been ok with rendering their home town of Los Angeles divine this time round, hopes for a switch to their songwriting abilities are high for what’s next to come.

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

AV

COLD WAR KIDS

“LA DIVINE”

2017, Capitol Records

http://www.coldwarkids.com

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MUSIC IS FOR EVERYONE (AND SO IS FREEDOM) | 2017-04-03

I know it’s been a fairly high amount of ARM instalments on these premises lately, hence why I won’t be framing this very one as yet another one of those and, even though it most certainly deals with and celebrates the power of music, just putting out a friendly warning that Everything Must Swing might never have gotten this political before. Getting straight to the point and without unnecessary clicks-generating namedrops, in the past couple years the Western socio-political world has come to exist in a seemingly never ending state of widespread dysfunctional crisis and democratic disenfranchisement, mostly through forms of radical political movements gaining decisional power and by consequence hurting both economics and well beings of societies at large. Whilst I’m aware that, luckily, there have been many shapes and forms of protests over time (and one of them many has made its way into this site before) – principally because protest and countermovements can be of different nature intrinsically and by design – there’s one particular initiative leveraging the power of arts and music more specifically that I’d like to bring to every reader’s attention.

The initiative I’m referring to is a music compilation album put together and curated by Taking Back Sunday‘s lead guitarist John Nolan, brilliantly called Music for Everyone and out just a couple days ago on 30th March via Collective Confusion Records and Californian Hopeless Records’ charity arm label Sub City Records. All proceeds from digital sales of the compilation will help support non-profit organisation American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), a movement that for over 100 years has worked to defend and preserve the individual rights and liberties of people. Music for Everyone is a mighty 27-song compilation that features rare or unreleased music by an incredibly rich and talented bunch of artists ranging from punk legends Anti-Flag to rapper Gift of Gab, from emo-icon and former My Chemical Romance guitarist Frank Iero to modern generation singer-songwriters such as Dave Hause and Kevin Devine. Not missing from the collection album’s tracklist is of course John Nolan’s very own Taking Back Sunday, who contributed with an exclusive new acoustic cut entitled “Just A Man”. This is John Nolan himself speaking about some of the reasons that brought him to put together such a massive collaborative effort:

“I also wanted to give artists an opportunity to express something about what’s gone on in this country over the past year and what’s coming in the next ones. I needed that for myself and wanted to connect with other people who needed it. And I wanted to take that need for self-expression and channel it into something bigger than all of us.”

The compilation and its stamp are quite clearly directed at angrily pushing back and expressing widespread discontent towards the recent election of Donald Trump as 45th president of the USA, as the main curator goes on explaining:

“In the next four years, there is a lot of potential to see policies that will discriminate against people of color, Muslims, women and the LGBT community. The ACLU has a long history of fighting discriminatory and unconstitutional policies and I wanted to do something to unite people in support of that fight.”

While there is little to add to such a noble and honorable intent, I do believe that the inspiring and positive initiative brought forward by Music for Everyone could and should be applied in many other contexts regardless of background and geographic specifics, as in the end it’s all about those values of incisiveness, togetherness, tolerance and freedom that are currently being put under threat in so many geopolitical circumstances. If anyone feels that said values should indeed be protected and reinforced across the board whilst realising that so much of the free world is currently underway to limiting individual rights, then the least one could do would be to show some support by contributing to the cause by purchasing the album on its dedicated Bandcamp page. It’s a Name-Your-Own-Price (NYOP) model whereby each of us – very much in the spirit of the whole campaign – can freely decide how much to donate towards the project and the benevolent actions of the ACLU, starting with a price of $10.

As of now the compilation album is only available digitally in all its formats (download, streaming, etc…), and according to a recent Facebook Q&A session with John Nolan physical and vinyl releases might be planned for the future, depending on early successes of the initiative. Music-wise, as one can imagine with a tracklist of 27 songs, the album is extremely varied and rich in genres and sounds, carrying the listener through sonic journeys of punk rock draft tunes (Anti-Flag’s demo opener “Buried the Shame”), beautiful and heartbreaking songwriting intimacy (a live performance of “Honest Man” by wonderful Travis Hayes), upbeat dystopian scenarios (“I’m Paranoid” by Brett Newski), dirty and muddy existential anger (Frank Iero’s “Getting Into Heaven Can be Hell”) and, of course, more or less veiled punches in President Trump’s face, with the aforementioned Taking Back Sunday tune “Just A Man”, the vulnerable and addictive “sinn” by Cameron Boucher and anthemic hope closer “The Day After Tomorrow” as only some of the many highlights across these 90 minutes of protest music.

In a present world increasingly afflicted by humanitarian and identity crises across the board, there was never a more important time to state that we all were born in this together and that our energies are doubtlessly better spent elsewhere than in close-minded populist narratives and actions. Very much like our human race, music has always been there from the beginnings, crafting in itself a universally coded language driving progress and connection among nations, borders and ethnic groups. The Music for Everyone initiative is just a catalysing spark that is very much up for grab and re-invention, re-interpretation, and re-appropriation in other political and societal scenarios, acting so much as inspiration as it does as concrete localised initiative benefiting the immediate concrete actions of the ACLU. Let’s embrace this, let’s pick our own organisations to endorse and let’s try to push back at the injustices of present times, reminding everyone possible that just like music, freedom is for everyone.

Before we wrap up, make damn sure you read more on the various ACLU’s commitments to stand up for human rights in the wake of the recent US presidential election: www.aclu.org/news/aclu-statement-donald-trumps-election

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

AV

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