Lyrically, New Again is rather weak. The title track album opener essentially has four lines that are repeated in a varying order about 80 times and cleverly reference Little Red Riding Hood. Except there is nothing clever about it whatsoever, "What long arms you have / All the better to hold you down." Upon the release of 2006's Louder Now, I remember complaining repeatedly that the lyrics paled in comparison to the previous two TBS albums. In fact, I argued that the majority of songs appeared to not really be about anything and served simply as collections of quotable lines that could be used on one's myspace profile to sound profound. However, after reviewing the lyrics on New Again, Louder Now is like Keep The Aspidistra Flying. Not only are the lyrics on New Again devoid of much meaning, they are not even poetically quotable, "I put my money where my mouth is."
The song "Capital M-E" could potentially be the most lyrically poignant on the album, as it is about former member Mascherino. Finally, a song that is actually about something. However, the lyrics do not really say much--this is yet another underwritten track. The lyrics do indeed articulate my earlier point that Mascherino was a type of mentor to Lazarra, "All I ever did was look up to you," and even takes a decent jab at the former guitarist/back-up vocalist, "Divinities fell correctly beneath / The receding pride of his twenties." However, beyond those couple of lines the song really does not say much....something about Fred being nice but then slithering away and that he is older than Adam. Ohhhh burn!
Beyond the poor quality lyrics, I find New Again to be disappointing musically as well. I find there to be little that is memorable on each track and any hook is blatantly obvious--generally a cringe-producing over-repetition of one line in the chorus, like in "Catholic Knees", "Everything was moving so fast/Everything was moving so fast." Furthermore, this album is devoid of much of an edge. Though I found Louder Now to be a lot more radio-friendly than past albums, New Again is even more radio-friendly as it avoids any screaming or designated "hard" parts. Now that Lazarra is a clean-cut fully functioning member of society, I doubt TBS will ever have this edge again. The only track that stands out is closer "Everything Must Go," which follows the format of past TBS slow-moving, dramatic build-up songs like "One-Eighty By Summer" and "My Blue Heaven." Also, the track has a half-decent chorus with an actual quotable line, "You quote the good book when it's convenient," and some nice high-pitched singing courtesy of Lazarra.
Oh how I miss these days...
