Taking Back Sunday - Twenty-Twenty Surgery (Warner)
2/5
By: Chris Pratt
Okay, Okay, I admit it - there was a time, not too long ago, when I considered a sneaky listen to some of the songs from 'Tell All Your Friends' a genuine guilty pleasure. Yes, the vocals were whiny and, yes, the lyrics were overwrought but there was something in the playful dynamics between the two singers and enough variety in their songwriting to keep me listening, although even in those dark days I doubt very much whether I would have exchanged any hard-earned greenbacks for a Taking Back Sunday recording or ticket.
'Twenty-Twenty Surgery' is taken from the band's third full-length, and Warner debut, 'Louder Now' and although they bafflingly continue to pack out halls on both sides of the pond with legions of preening emo-peacocks, even TBS must realise that they would require nothing less than Doc Brown's Delorean with controls set for the dawn of the millennium to get anywhere near returning to their (albeit dubious) best.
The departure of key members post-debut album has left the remainder of the band scrabbling desperately to capture any of the previous chemistry, with no apparent success - this particular song chugs along with a lifeless mainstream-rock sheen reminiscent of a glossy replica meal that you might see in the window of a dubious Chinese restaurant. If you're going to remove all character from your voice, Mr. Sunday, then you're going to need to write a pretty startling melody to stop the song becoming little more then aural gruel, which 'Twenty-Twenty Surgery' undoubtedly is. Lyrically it's also a no-show, with the title crooned ad nauseum alongside pseudo-emotional garbage like 'you're so sensitive/ I am a machine' - not a patch on the gallows-humour-injected high-school poetics of their early stuff.
Artists in this article: Taking Back Sunday
Your Feedback
Login to post your comment