Taking Back Sunday is by far the quintessential faux-emo/Pop-punk band in modern times. They achieved huge success on the (barely) indie label, Victory Records by creating two great (well one great, one average) CD's full of Pop-Punk genius.
Their debut, the stronger of the two indie CDs,
Tell All Your Friends is an excellent mix of melodic instrumentation and emotional vocals. TBS' rhythm section dwarfs most of modern Pop-Punk bands. Strong drum beats and bass lines that don't blindly follow the fairly average guitar riffs back up the highlight of TAYF, the vocals.
Taking Back Sunday lead singer Adam sings lyrics not out of place from a diary with emotion and depth and back-up singer John highlights Adam's vocals with his own, at just the right time, the emotional peak. Tracks like album ender
Head Club feature great dual vocals with Adam and John singing different lyrics over top each other or the same lyrics at the same time creating nice sounding harmonies.
Songs like
Cute Without the 'E' and
Your So Last Summer are just great pop songs, both house lyrics found in half a million girl's MySpace profiles and great guitar riffs. If you love Fall Out Boy and have the lyrics from My Chemical Romance's new CD stuck in your head you owe it to yourself to pick this up. And even if you couldn't give a crap about FOB and MCR you should still look this up.
-Dan
