WARNER BROS Taking Back Sunday - Louder Now (U.S. Version)

If you want the two word review, it's right there in the title: Louder Now, the third album from New York's Taking Back Sunday, is heavier, ballsier and all round bigger than its predecessors, like the soggy-hanky emo of 2004's Where You Want To Be took some lessons from Charles Atlas and came back to kick sand in everyone's face. In part, this is down to the visceral production of Eric Valentine, last seen working the desk for Queens Of The Stone Age. But the band have hardened up, too: 'Liar (It Takes One To Know One' builds from a tricksy, ska-tinged verse to a seismic chorus, frontman Adam Lazzara and guitarist Fred Mascherino sparring manfully atop a roar of rock guitars, while 'Make Damn Sure' is perhaps the album's stand-out, a canyon-sized chorus that renders emo passion with stadium scope. The irony here, perhaps, is that in toughening up their sound, Taking Back Sunday have actually made a more straightforward "rock" record than anything came before. Later in the album, though, there's a few moments where TBS ease off the gas, with interesting results: see 'Divine Intervention', a spare, introspective acoustic track with distant percussion and subtle, strange tape effects. Meanwhile, a limited reissue adds a 90 minute DVD and four live tracks. ?-Louis Pattison

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