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Billy Talent - Billy Talent III
| Allmusic |
| Adding swampy blues-rock and down-home muscle riffs to their punk-pop template, Billy Talent's third album, aptly titled Billy Talent III, owes as much to Zeppelin rock stomps as it does to latter-day Green Day. In the start of "Rusted from the Rain," vocalist Ben Kowalewicz sounds like a dead ringer for Billie Joe Armstrong in "Boulevard of Broken Dreams," but by the grungy, drop-D chorus of "Crush me like a flower, rusted in the rain/Strip me of my power, beat me with a chain" bombast kicks in and it's more like Jeff Buckley fronting Soundgarden. If it sounds like the Ontario quartet has replaced their Buzzcocks-influenced art-punk roots, it's because they have. It's a questionable move, but songs like "Tears into Wine" show that Billy Talent's venture into biting arena rock shows promise. While the songs are slicker and less snide, they're surely not obvious or easily calculated. The group's still too beefy and weird to fit the emo-pop label. It's common for punk groups to turn face and go this softer route, and while Billy Talent might be on this path, especially with Warped Tour gigs, for now it seems like they're intent on carving their own niche. The problem is that the music often becomes pulled in too many directions. When they try their hand at reggae-rock in the "Can't Stand Losing You"-reminiscent "Diamond in a Landmine" it sounds forced, and "The Dead Can't Testify" includes a confusing juxtaposition of minstrel hammerchord and metal grooves. Strangely though, when they stretch farthest away from their origins, as they do on the plodding power ballad "Sudden Movements," their sound takes a turn for the best....full text |
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| Nowtoronto |
| Looks like Billy Talent landed that big American producer often sought by successful Canadian bands hoping to get to the next level (i.e., cracking the U.S. market). Brendan O’Brien, best known for his continuous work with Pearl Jam and Springsteen, takes over from Gavin Brown on Billy’s third s/t offering, and there’s some noticeable dulling of the edges here....full text |
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| Drownedinsound |
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Whilst playing Guitar Hero for the first time last week, I suddenly became overwhelmed by a unyielding sense of shame. I said to myself: "I am a twenty five year old man pretending to play a plastic guitar." During a struggle through ‘Misery Business’ by Paramore I thought, "well I suppose at least I’m not in a band playing this pop-punk shit live. Wouldn’t it be embarrassing to be in my 20s and earnestly sing songs about how much I want to feed Robert Pattinson my filthy pretzel?" Billy Talent have been chasing the game since the mid Nineties, though back then they were attempting to ape such luminaries as Sublime, No Doubt and The Mighty Mighty Bosstones by playing a horrific brand of ska under the name of Pezz. The band we know today came about via a combination of legal action forcing them to change their horrific candy-coated moniker, and a sudden moment of realisation whilst sitting in their trailer park homes watching bands like The Offspring and Green Day explode on MTV, leading to an abandonment of ska and a boarding of the pop punk bandwagon....full text |
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