Straylight Run

Straylight Run
Self-titled

Emo is all about broken hearts and love gone bad. Apparently in Taking Back Sunday’s case, the love went bad within the band as well. After the success of their first record Tell All Your Friends, band members John Noland and Shaun Cooper left after a bout of band members cheating on other band member’s sisters. (Be careful guys, this could turn into the emo version of Tupac vs. Biggie) Nolan and Cooper formed Straylight Run, which includes the sister in question on guitar and piano.

One would expect that Nolan’s songs with his new band would sound a lot like the material he co-wrote with TB but he takes a slightly different approach with Straylight. The overly dramatic, typical emo song titles are all there – “The Tension and the Terror,” “Existentialism on Prom Night” – but the screaming is not. Instead of shifting from pop/punk to screamo, Straylight heads the other direction – from pop/punk to super mellow.

This approach works for the most part. The album begins on a high point, the counter-intuitively titled opening track “The Perfect Ending.” At points the album gets a little boring, but if you like feeling like the world is falling apart you probably won't notice.

If Taking Back Sunday is the concert, Straylight Run is the music for the ride home.