Louder Now

Louder Now
Studio album by Taking Back Sunday
Released April 25, 2006
December 12, 2006 (Louder Now: PartOne)
Recorded Hollywood, California
Genre Alternative rock, post-hardcore, emo, pop punk
Length 45:38
Label Warner Bros.
Producer Eric Valentine
Taking Back Sunday studio album chronology

Where You Want to Be
(2004)		 Louder Now
(2006)		 New Again
(2009)
Alternative cover
Special Edition CD/DVD Dual Cover
Professional ratings
Aggregate scores
Source Rating
Metacritic (64/100) [1]
Review scores
Source Rating
AbsolutePunk 75% [2]
Allmusic [3]
Alternative Press [4]
The A.V. Club C− [5]
Entertainment Weekly B+ [6]
Now [1]
Rolling Stone [7]
Spin (8/10) [1]
Stylus Magazine B− [8]
Uncut [1]

Louder Now is the third album by American rock band Taking Back Sunday, released on April 25, 2006 through Warner Bros. Records. The first single off the album was "MakeDamnSure." The song "Error: Operator" was released on the Fantastic Four 2005 film soundtrack, but was altered and revamped for Louder Now, resulting in the 2005 version becoming known as the "F4 Edit." Louder Now was leaked onto the internet in its entirety on April 19, 2006.

There were two other songs recorded during the Louder Now sessions, "Brooklyn (If You See Something, Say Something)" and "Sleep". "Brooklyn (If You See Something, Say Something)" is on the iTunes bonus version of Louder Now, and "Sleep" is on the "MakeDamnSure" UK single released May 22.

The title Louder Now appears as a lyric in the song "What's It Feel Like to Be a Ghost?" as well as in "Bonus Mosh Pt. II" from their album Where You Want to Be.

In late 2006, a special edition CD/DVD was released entitled The Louder Now DVD: PartOne.

The album was voted the best of 2006 in Kerrang! magazine's end-of-year poll.

As of June 9, 2008, the album has sold over 900,000 copies, according to Nielsen SoundScan.

Louder Now was the band's last release featuring Fred Mascherino as lead guitarist and back-up vocalist.

Album art

The cover for the album began as a photograph the band found called 'New York City, 1963' by a New York photographer named Joel Meyerowitz.

The band had this to say: "We thought the irony of the speaker covering someone's persona, making something both more prominent yet more hidden at the same time was really interesting. So we called Mr. Meyerowitz and he was nice enough to let us share his photo so we could create our cover. Brad [Filip] did the rest and the result is 'Louder Now'."

There are two versions of the album artwork, one is the original album art cover, the other, is the one used to promote the single 'MakeDamnSure' on selected websites.

Special edition

On December 12, 2006 Taking Back Sunday released a special CD/DVD version on the album entitled The Louder Now DVD: PartOne. The DVD was the first from the group and the CD/DVD was packaged in a dual cover, featuring the original album cover and a new cover by Greg Watermann. The CD includes the original 11 tracks plus four live tracks.

DVD features

The DVD contains over 60 minutes of footage, documenting the making of the album, their world tour and also live and behind the scenes footage of a show at the Long Beach Arena. The band's website states that "...it has more behind the scenes footage than we've ever released before - about 60 minutes of the clowning around that you know and love."

Dual cover

Louder Now: PartOne had a dual cover, containing the original cover as well a new cover: a photo by Greg Watermann. The photo was taken during the band's Long Beach Area show in the summer of 2006, and was chosen because it contained all five band members.

Reception

The album so far has a score of 64 out of 100 from Metacritic based on "generally favorable reviews".[1] Most reviews are positive: IGN gave the album a score of 6.7 out of ten and said, "It's a safe bet to say that TBS diehards will soak up the 11 tracks with a sponge-like vengeance. Newcomers may wonder what all the bells and whistles are about, though. But tracks like "My Blue Heaven," "Spin," "Divine Intervention," and "I'll Let You Live" promise even greater things to come from this band, who are only now hinting at their growing sonic maturity."[9] Others are mixed or unfavorable: NME gave the album a score of six out of ten and said "it tails off towards the end, and TBS never quite shake the feeling that other people are doing this sort of thing far more thrillingly elsewhere."[1] Punknews.org gave it one-and-a-half stars out of five and said it was "getting old and pretty boring. Taking their often-compared counterparts in Brand New under consideration, Taking Back Sunday simply hasn't grown. While the last album's lack of maturity could be blamed on the band being re-formed, they've been a single group now for long enough that there should be some sense of growth. Instead, what I'm hearing is the best impersonation of old Taking Back Sunday that the new Taking Back Sunday could put together."[10]

Track listing

All songs written and composed by Taking Back Sunday. 

Original CD
No. Title Length
1. "What's It Feel Like to Be a Ghost?"   3:47
2. "Liar (It Takes One to Know One)"   3:09
3. "MakeDamnSure"   3:32
4. "Up Against (Blackout)"   3:02
5. "My Blue Heaven"   4:09
6. "Twenty-Twenty Surgery"   3:55
7. "Spin"   3:39
8. "Divine Intervention"   4:14
9. "Miami"   3:41
10. "Error: Operator"   2:51
11. "I'll Let You Live"   5:07
Total length:
 41:06

Personnel

Taking Back Sunday[12]
Additional musicians
Production

Singles

References

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 Critic reviews at Metacritic
  2. ↑ AbsolutePunk review
  3. ↑ Allmusic review
  4. ↑ Alternative Press review
  5. ↑ The A.V. Club review
  6. ↑ Entertainment Weekly review
  7. ↑ Rolling Stone review at the Wayback Machine (archived October 14, 2007)
  8. ↑ Stylus Magazine review
  9. ↑ IGN review
  10. ↑ Punknews.org review
  11. ↑ https://itunes.apple.com/gb/album/louder-now-deluxe-version/id438609693
  12. ↑ "Louder Now - Taking Back Sunday". AllMusic. 2006-04-25. Retrieved 2012-02-29.

External links