Artist: Taking Back Sunday
Single: Flicker, Fade
Album: Happiness Is
Number of Tracks: 11
Release Date: 18 March 2014
Label: Hopeless Records
Hopeless Records took to Youtube again this week in order to plug the release of Flicker, Fade, the new single from Taking Back Sunday (TBS) and the first glimpse of their upcoming March album, Happiness Is.
At first look Flicker, Fade certainly doesn’t seem like the kind of track you’d use as the flagship song of a pending album. There’s no denying that crashingly angsty choruses certainly deliver the caliber of composition expected by TBS fans. However, after an intro that sets up a song that will follow this vein throughout, the verse offers itself up as a slight flop compared to what the first few bars set this piece up to be. Instead of a full on storm, you’re hit by something that has the ability to rock but only as a small breeze might a rocking chair.
Though it doesn’t quite move the earth, Flicker, Fade does contain some classic elements that see Taking Back Sunday make steps towards maturing their sound. Dispensing with thin punk melodies, Flicker, Fade is an example of improvement on previous slower TBS songs. Using a range of intonation, frontman Adam Lazzara is reassuring in his vocal power, a rough-around-the-edges texture perfectly complementing the full bodied buzz of guitar noise.
Tracklist:
1. Preface
2. Flicker, Fade
3. Stood A Chance
4. All The Way
5. Beat Up Car
6. It Takes More
7. They Don’t Have Any Friends
8. Better Homes And Gardens
9. Like You Do
10. We Were Younger Then
11. Nothing At All
I do still find it mystifying as to why this song was chosen over a potential ten other tracks to be a single. It lacks a catchy element, but then does appeal to the good old-fashioned emo rock sensibility, TBS’s target genre all along. You have to recognise its show casing of the band’s growth since the early days and if listeners can take it like this then Flicker, Fade could be the fore-runner of a rather neat little album.
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