Taking Back Sunday – “Tidal Wave” [Album Review]

Emo kings Taking Back Sunday are back with Tidal Wave, their seventh outing and one that even hardcore fans of the band will probably find something of a struggle to get to grips with. You see, the problem with Tidal Wave is that, while there are a few decent moments on the album, there are just too many songs that fall a bit short of the mark.

The album starts off fine enough as the opening salvo of “Death Wolf” and the title track fire past in a blur of jangly punk rock riffs and that continues through the next song “You Can’t Look Back”. So far so good, as the band throw a fair dose of emotion into a sound that is built around a raw, unpolished production. However, things start to take a turn for the worse when you reach “Fences” where the alarms bells start ringing as the album descends into fairly uneventful waters. As Tidal Wave really starts to struggle through “All Excess” and “I Feel It Too”, you start to fear the worst as all memories of the punk rock swagger that heralded the start of this release are soon nothing more than a distant memory. Things start to pick up for the energetic “Call Come Running” and “In The Middle Of It All” but, sadly, by this point, it’s not enough.

The sad thing is that longtime fans of the band will know how much frontman Adam Lazarra and his bandmates can deliver a performance full of emotion and passion but, for large chunks of Tidal Wave, there are just too many moments like “Homecoming” where the end result is just very forgettable.

Tidal Wave Track Listing:

01. Death Wolf
02. Tidal Wave
03. You Can’t Look Back
04. Fences
05. All Excess
06. I Felt It Too
07. Call Come Running
08. Holy Water
09. In The Middle Of It All
10. We Don’t Go In There
11. Homecoming
12. I’ll Find A Way To Make It What You Want

Run Time: 47:58
Release Date: September 16, 2016

Check out the track “You Can’t Look Back”