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Often it’s less about creating the sound than crystallizing it. By the time Taking Back Sunday released its first album, 2002’s Tell All Your Friends, emo had been around for years; in fact, guitarist Ed Reyes was in the popular early adherent Movielife. TBS had all the requisite moves — churning, angular post-punk guitar, earnest, heart-worn vocals, anthemic choruses with big hooks, and rumbling, hardcore rhythms into the breaks. It was hardly original, but it was put together with a craftsman’s skill. The band’s relentless touring grew a huge underground following, but it wasn’t apparent how big until its latest, Where You Want to Be, sold more than 160,000 in its first week. All this after its rhythm section walked a year ago, months prior to recording. Now, with emo originals like Promise Ring, Jimmy Eat World, and Get Up Kids little more than commercial footnotes, TBS stands atop the movement’s second wave (called “screamo” for the hardcore/metal influence that’s crept in), with an album that’s gone gold and threatens to break the entire sound into the mainstream.
