|
What’s the 4-1-1?
The Canadian quartet’s sophomore set finds the band in fine
form as they mix the songs up between those of a more personal nature and
tracks looking at the bigger picture of life.
Genre
Rock / hard rock / punk rock
The Good
The band sure has a handle on how to fill in the space on the CD. The powerful
opener “Devil In A Midnight Mass” is a screed against all the
crimes priests have been perpetrating on kids through the years. They manage
to get their point across forcefully, without sacrificing the necessity
to make it a good song, not just a rant. The next two tracks are “Red
Flag” and “This Suffering.” The two songs are both simply
fantastic rock songs.
The vocals are mostly well done, and the music varies its way from straight ahead
rock and roll, hard rock, and that catalyst of the punk vibe.
The album closer “Burn The Evidence” was a pretty solid
way of closing out the disc. The two best songs on the album I thought were “Fallen
Leaves”,
which is a song about drug addiction and the toll it takes on everyone and
everything. The other song,
"Where Is The Line?” takes on modern day hypocrisy. It includes
a really telling lyric: “The truth about conformity, is it bites without
a sting.” Another thing I liked with this album was that the liner notes included an
original artwork related to each individual song on the disc. It was very well
done.
The Bad
While in the end I liked the song “Worker Bees,” I didn’t
like the badly screamed chorus.
The song “Surrender” was the one song here that I thought was flat
out bad.
The Verdict
Billy Talent is a new to me band, but I’ll be darned if, for the most
part, they didn’t just blow me away with their second album. II shows
the band’s ability to take their punk influences and combine it with
a modern hard rock sound. The songwriting is pretty tight and the musicianship
is top notch. I really enjoyed this one immensely.
Did You Know?
The band was originally known as Pezz.
Rating:   out
of 5
-- Jay Roberts
|
BILLY
TALENT
