First off, let’s make one thing clear: there was no way Taking Back Sunday could ever live up to the immense and unrealistic expectations most placed on them for their fifth album. All right, let us move on.

Taking Back Sunday’s aptly dubbed “OG Lineup” or, for those less inclined, their Tell All Your Friends lineup (re: John Nolan and Shaun Cooper are back, journeymen Matthew Fazzi and Matt Rubano dismissed), are back together and raring to show the music world what Taking Back Sunday could have been if not for that pesky drama that reared its ugly head eight years ago. Nolan and Cooper’s homecoming marks a quasi-return to form, but certainly is not Tell All Your Friends II. Rather, Taking Back Sunday’s fifth album, so blandly self-titled, is a concoction of the group’s many incarnations of these past nine years.  In fact, one could assert that Taking Back Sunday is more New Again than it is Tell All Your Friends.

The album kicks off with the Brand New-esque “El Paso,” a barn-burner of a track that is made notable by the brutally aggressive vocals of Adam Lazzara and Nolan. It is comforting to find the back-and-forth vocals reenergized after New Again’s Adam Lazzara-party. Whether it’s on tracks such as “Best Place To Be A Mom,” a song seemingly plucked from Where You Want To Be, or “Who Are You Anyway,” that Taking Back Sunday-sound refreshed with the return of Nolan.

The highlights of Taking Back Sunday come on either the fast, bellicose tracks (“You Got Me,” “El Paso,” “Who Are You Anyway”) or the subdued, Straylight Run-tinged tracks (“Sad Savior” and “Call Me In The Morning”). Unfortunately, the Long Island quintet’s heavy reliance on mid-tempo numbers clutters the album and blends several songs together. This is especially salient near the end of the record, as “This Is All Now,” “It Doesn’t Feel A Thing Like Falling,” and “Since You’re Gone” struggle to stand apart. The latter flat-lines lyrically, as Lazzara’s near-screams of “I’m sorry // I’m sorry // Come back // Come back” during the chorus comes off as overly desperate and whiny. On “This Is All Now,” Lazzara once again battles lyrical mediocrity when he bellows “I know you mean well // with your ancient code of ethics // you lead by example // can you imagine Christ hitting a child?” Fortunately, the other religious references hidden throughout Taking Back Sunday are not as cliché as the one just mentioned.

Perhaps Taking Back Sunday can be best summed up as a stepping-stone for future releases—you never know what to expect from these guys. After nine years apart, the group needed to put their feet back into the pool and test the water before jumping in. Consider Taking Back Sunday that test. Is it perfect? Not remotely close. Yet, it certainly is an enjoyable listen, allowing the listener to not only reminisce about the past, but also start framing what the future will look like for Taking Back Sunday. 

★★★☆☆

*This review was composed by Mike Meeze