Tidal Wave is the seventh studio album by American rock band Taking Back Sunday. During the touring cycle for Happiness Is (2014), the group worked on material for their next record. Following a holiday show in late 2015, guitarist John Nolan was expecting his second child and wished to be nearby. As a result, vocalist Adam Lazzara was informed by engineer Mike Pepe of a studio close by that he worked at, Sioux Sioux Studio in Charlotte, North Carolina. With the members living between Lazzara and Nolan's houses, they persuaded producer Mike Sapone to join them. In January 2016, the group were writing at the studio, and by March, they started recording. One change the group experienced was the ability to track every instrument, and subsequently listen to it back. This enabled the group to listen to the proceedings objectively, rather than talking solely about a single part.

In summer 2016, the band embarked on the Taste of Chaos tour. In late June, Tidal Wave was announced and a music video was also released for the title-track. In late August, a music video was released for "You Can't Look Back". In mid-September, a lyric video was released for "Death Wolf". Tidal Wave was released on September 16 through Hopeless Records. The album peaked at number 36 on the Billboard 200 and in the top 10 of several other Billboard charts. In addition, it also charted in Australia and Scotland. Following this, the group went in an intimate club tour, during which they played the album in its entirety. In February 2017, a music video was released for "Call Come Running", and the group went on a UK tour. An Australian tour in March, followed by appearances at the When We Were Young and Rock on the Range festivals in April and May, respectively. In summer, the band embarked on a co-headlining US tour with Every Time I Die.

This was the band's last studio album to feature guitarist and co-founder Eddie Reyes, who announced his departure in 2018.

Taking Back Sunday released their sixth album Happiness Is in early 2014 through Hopeless Records. The album, which was produced by Mike Sapone, reached the top 10 in the Billboard 200. In between tours for the record, the group would meet up for two/three weeks at a time and work on ideas for their next album. In an interview with The Aquarian Weekly in early December 2015, vocalist Adam Lazzara reckoned that there would be another writing session before the group goes to record their next album. He said he could not "believe how [some of the songs] are coming out". During a holiday show in late December, Taking Back Sunday performed a new song entitled "Tidal Wave". While in preparation to record their next album, guitarist John Nolan was expecting a second child and wanted to be nearby. According to Lazzara, the group "always said it would be nice if there was a studio here we could record at", but was unaware of any.

Engineer Mike Pepe, who had been a long-time fan of the group, subsequently told Lazzara about a local studio where he worked at, Sioux Sioux Studios in Charlotte, North Carolina. Lazzara said he and Nolan were completely unaware of its existence, "It was too perfect. You never know what you’re getting when you go into a place, but Sioux Sioux had everything". The remaining band members that resided in other states – guitarist Eddie Reyes in Ohio, and drummer Mark O'Connell and bassist Shaun Cooper in New York – lived between Lazzara and Nolan's houses in Charlotte. The group then persuaded Sapone, who was based in Long Island, New York, to join them. After meeting up with the group, Lazzara said Sapone "didn't want to leave. He fell in love with it here. He would always get up early and drive around town". In early January 2016, the group posted that they were writing new material at the studio. Pepe and Ray Jeffrey worked on pre-production.

In mid-March 2016, the band revealed they had begun recording. Nolan said Sapone had frequently talked about Achtung Baby (1991) by U2, how it was that group's seventh record "and it challenged people's idea of who they were". It subsequently became a reference point for the group, in addition to INXS, Robert Palmer and the Cure, which "isn't necessarily obvious when you listen to Tidal Wave but on some level did influence it". Lazzara said ideas for songs would occur to him often while driving to the studio. Lazzara said one of the biggest changes with the album was that "we would play and track everything, and immediately go and listen to it without our instruments". It allowed the group to "look at things more objectively rather than playing a part all together in a room then talking about it". He added that it gave them "a point of reference that we could go back and listen to and that seemed to be a bit more productive for us". Lazzara said it became this "streamlined process to where we could get past the core of the song and start to add new ideas and chord changes just so the song can work better as a whole".

Lazzara said Sapone would "push you even when you don't want to be pushed and wants to explore every possible option that your brain can come up with". The group said that during recording "we've been discovering and surprising ourselves in realizing how good of a band we've become". Nolan said that "some of the playing on this record is just the best we've ever done. There were times when Mark was playing and I was thinking, 'I don't know how he's physically doing that'". Nolan said a lot of consideration went into how the guitars sounded "whether it was the amps or the different pedal combinations that we were trying out". Nolan said that his "instinct" when it came to lead guitar parts was to be laid back "and do things that are simple and melodic". Lazzara, who preferred guitar solos that do "something crazy and getting the tension", pushed for Nolan to do "more guitar noodling". Cooper said Reyes "had the basic riffs and [Nolan] could really explore his instrument". In early June, Lazzara said they had finished recording and were "getting the final mixes now". The NoDa Tabernacle Good Times Choir provided additional vocals on "Homecoming". Claudius Mittendorfer mixed the recordings at Atomic Heart Studio in New York City, while Stephen Marcussen mastered them at Marcussen Mastering in Hollywood, California.

Lazzara said the group had four or five working titles for the album's name, but "none of them were that good". He added that after the group "were able to take a step back, that's when it was like, "Wait, there's all these references to water..." and then just that phrase—those two words [Tidal Wave] take on this whole new meaning". Discussing the lyrics, Lazzara said he "lose[s] sleep over it" and said that the songs had four or different drafts of lyrics "and you just try everything until something clicks and is right". Overall, he said the album was "a bit of a departure but I don't think its coming out of left field". Nolan added that it was "the culmination of things we've tried over the past two records ... We've freed ourselves up to go in new directions". Lazzara said he realized "this whole idea that, as a singer, to express a certain emotion you don't have to just yell. There's a smarter way to do it", citing "You Can't Look Back" as "a real dynamic example of that". Allie Volpe of Nylon wrote that the album "deals with the trials of homesickness as an adult and the changes that come with maturity". The album's sound has been described as alternative rock, emo, hard rock, heartland rock and pop rock, taking influences from such artists as Bruce Springsteen, the Ramones, the Gaslight Anthem, the Replacements, John Mellencamp, Tom Petty, Bryan Adams and Don Henley.