Everyone who has ever been dumped needs this album.

Taking Back Sunday’s debut, Tell All Your Friends, is a piece of hard-core brilliance — 45 minutes of relentless melodic wailing about relationships falling apart. Singers Adam Lazzara and John Nolan trade lines back and forth, detailing who wronged them and how.

With lyrical sentiments such as “I know you well enough to know you never loved me” and “listen, trick, I’ve had all I can handle” set to aggressive hard-core rhythms, Tell All Your Friends is a surefire way to end your moping.

I first discovered this album through a friend who got dumped and played it constantly. A few years later, that same friend dumped me. Tell All Your Friends was the first record I turned to. Spending long nights driving around and screaming along with Adam and John — sharing their pain — helped me push through my own. It remains a go-to record to this day.

Upon closer inspection, I came to realize the songs aren’t all about breakups. Not in the romantic sense, at least. But they all sound like they are, and that’s the most important part. If you are, as they sing on “You Know How I Do,” “so sick of being tired and also tired of being sick,” this album is the cure for what ails you.

— by Tommy Morgan Jr.