Review Summary: …that this is one chaotic album they might need in their chaotic times.
Emo Classics Series: Episode VI
Now, before we begin this review, I would like you to answer a question: Do you notice any similar features in the previous albums in this series❓The answer is that all of them are mainly about your typical teenage issue: fighting with romantic bitterness, being a wallflower in your community, struggling from your depressions, etc. However, do you ever wonder how these themes are eventually coined as the feature of music genre “Emo” that we know and secretly indulged today❓For me, the answer perhaps lies in
Taking Back Sunday’s debut album—Tell All Your Friends. While their predecessors such as
Jawbreakers and
Jimmy Eat World and some peers that emerged earlier in the scene such as
The Used introduced the vocabularies of personal teenage issues and the punk-infused sound in the genre, TBS weaved these vocabularies and sounds and put them together, and showcased them as the feature of their now landmark album and, eventually, as that of third wave Emo.
However, before we get to the lyrical themes of the album, let’s first discuss the brilliant instrumentals and productions in this album. What makes the album’s so attracting sonically, it’s that the members and producers are able to craft a similarly engaging punk-edged sound in all of the songs without repeating them in the album. For instance, the grunge-infused “Bike Scene” also incorporate angelic female vocals (thanks to guitarist and co-vocalist John Nolan’s sister, Michelle), which highlights the song’s theme of a relationship at the brink of a breakup in a melancholic way; the blistering drums and guitars of “Timberwolves at New Jersey” also polishes the song’s angry nature and theme of friendship breakdown. All of which gave the album a uniform and consistent sonic texture that flourish the album’s distressed and chaotic lyrics, yet not falling into the mistake of redundancy in terms of sound.
Speaking of distressed and chaotic lyrics, Tell All Your Friends has a chockfull of them, especially those about romantic relationships in jeopardy. From trembling relationships (“Bike Scene”), the struggles from a manipulative relationship (the album highlight “Cute Without the ‘E’(Cut From The Team)”) to (ahem, Nolan) infidelities (“The Blue Channel”) and, inevitably, breakup (the breakup sex drama “Great Romance of the 20th Century” and “Head Club”), lead vocalist Adam Lazzara turns the words of romantic bitterness that only can be documented in diaries into beacon for those who desperately seek a shelter after a distraught in their romantic relationships with his youthful, emotive vocals. Perhaps no other lyrics can be as confronting to an abusive romantic partner as “And will you tell all your friends you’ve got your gun to my head❓” in “Cute Without The ‘E’”, highlighting an abusive relationship is never a good thing to both sides of the relationship, all the while polishing the album’s catharsis of a person’s struggle, thus highlights the meaning of the album title.
Not all of the bitter lyrics are about romantic breakdowns, however, as some of the songs are also documents of a downfall of a friendship. Specifically, the friendship between guitarist Nolan and (sigh, drumrolls please)
Brand New frontman Jesse Lacey (“Seventy Times 7”, anybody❓). The dramas are evident in songs like “There’s No ‘I’ in Team” and “Timberwolves at New Jersey”, where in the former of which, Lazzara brings Nolan’s words as a response to Brand New’s dis track, as Nolan hopes the two can bury the hatchet (“I started something I couldn't finish /And if we go down, we go down together”), while criticises Lacey for being a hypocrite (“Is this what you call tact❓ /I swear you're as subtle as a brick in the small of my back”); the latter, meanwhile, has much harsher lyrics, as he raged that the Brand New frontman of victimising himself (“You can't make them want you /They're all just laughing”), and being a coward. To be honest, these two songs are quite enjoyable, but the rather juvenile lyrics makes the two songs as my least favourite cuts, as they detail an embarrassing feud that might be too personal to unveil in a song. However, they did also gave a new dimension about friendship: Any friendship can be demolished within seconds if one of them turn against each other, not matter how strong they are, or how long the relationship has been developed.
But TBS can also make deeply personal cuts, too, with the lyrics of “You Know How I Do”, “Ghost Man on Third” and the anthem “You’re So Last Summer” seem like to be originated from Lazzara’s diary. In “You Know How I Do”, Lazzara’s sings about being apathetic towards the assistance from others while being in a drug addiction (“I'll give in one more time and feed you stupid lines all about ‘It's basic’”) and, eventually, being defensive (“Willing and ready to prove the worst of everything you said about”), all in a cathartic, gnarly fashion; the more morbid ”Ghost Man on Third”, in fact, is an introspective take of Lazzara’s own mental turmoil, as it details about his rather schizophrenic behaviours, from his dressing to his behaviour(“It’s time like these where silence means everything”), his usage of alcohol and drug to cope with his mental illness (“It’s my face versus the bottle, and that’s how bad could this hurt”) and his hiding of his dark identity in his hometown(“It’s a campaign of distraction”), showing the darkness of depression and substance abuse; the poppier highlight “You’re So Last Summer” might sound your typical sing-along anthem, but beneath the sugary guitars and hooks, there are dark lyrical themes: The song actually details a boy who is devoted to his well-known girlfriend, yet the significant other seems to be less enthusiastic and ready to dump him (“Boys like you are dime a dozen”), yet he still obsesses with her and ready to do the extreme actions to get what he wants (“Cause I'm a wishful thinker with the worst intentions /This'll be the last chance you get to drop my name”). Even though these lyrics are rather eyebrow-raising at best, it still shows the band is capable of writing darker themes without abandoning their post-hardcore sound and pop hooks, as “You’re So Last Summer” is one of TBS’ most well-known songs.
There are some rather significant flaws in the album, unfortunately, such as the duel vocals of Lazzara and Noland can be quite atonal at times. However, this is quite reasonable, as this is just their first album, and their vocals was not really ironed. Plus, they also complement the distressed, angry and chaotic nature of the album, which makes the album more cathartic. Moreover, the another issue of this album is that the unoriginality of the material that is used in the album, as if the band, besides of the teenage friendship drama, took the themes from their predecessors and peers and translate it into their material, as many already use themes such as romantic issues, depressions and drug addictions before TBS uses them. Nevertheless, the band actually did a brilliant job of emphasising the themes in the album, which helps to coin the genre itself, showcasing the features of lyrics related to personal yet universal melodrama and punk hooks.
Years after the album’s release, TBS would enhance their post-hardcore-goes-pop aesthetic in their follow-up Where You Want To Be and translate it in a darker, more
My Chemical Romance-like sound in Louder Now, and shape-shifted and matured stylistically throughout their over a decade long career. However, this album remains a solid base of the band’s sound and even the future post-hardcore bands’ sound, an Emo landmark that ages like a fine wine. Even though Lazzara claimed that he never looked his band as an Emo band (in an Alternative Press interview in this May), Tell All Your Friends, along with the following two albums, gave TBS an indelible label of third wave Emo heavyweights, and turned them to be seminal icons in the genre for generations.
