Taking Back Sunday Louder Now. Release Date : April 25, 2006. Label: Warner. Rating: Rock. (Screw points. To each his own!) I took a few listens to get the full virtue of this album. I really really dig it now. Classically emo (if you can call such a new genre 'classic'), with simple yet punchy punk guitars, raging vocals, stirring harmonies and plenty of anger and sadness for anyone. This is an anthem for high school lovers scorned, for a pissed off generation of kids that can't handle their parents' curfews, and yes, even for sods like me who like poetics and heartbreak just on principle for the emotional depth. I really like the vocals in this band - the main line is pulled like taffy, strained and whining (I mean that in a good way - it's emo, of course it's whiny! I love whiny), and the choruses pour in layers of harmonies, some that pass off to one another like relay runners passing off a baton. It's highly energetic, great music for jumping and screaming and tearing one's hair out. Great chunky drums accented by stop-start guitars get your feet stomping and fists pumping. Just good all around. In "My Blue Heaven" TBS even throws in some strings just to make it a bit more irresistable. It's a veritable hootenanny at the end of that one, creaky vocals in a small, jewelry-box-ballerina style break open into a full-blown singalong. Yum yum! And I love how if you listen closely to this emo-punk stuff these days, the nods to 80's metal is so very very there. Just in the flying guitars and general melodies. Awesome. Rock's not dead, it just has smaller hair. This crazy rock sound is rather apparent on "Spin..." Whoa! Rage. Yeah. No no wait, moreso in "Error:Operator" - What a cool song. Great chorus, tons and tons of violent vocals and this amazing metal riff in the middle, oh I love it! Song of choice : "MakeDamnSure" is totally tops for it's up-and-down building emotional outbursts. But "Liar (It Takes On To Know One)" is a close second for its super-cool harmonies. -Andy Scheffler Elsewhere Taking Back Sunday website Published : January, 2007.