Billy Talent
Billy Talent III

Release Date: 2009 | Tracklist

You should never try to freeze culture ... Take your older brother’s hand-me-down jacket and re-style it, re-fashion it to the point where it becomes your own. But don’t just regurgitate creative history ... the only thing that you can do to music that will damage it is not change it.


The above quote is an edited extract from the complete title of Chumbawumba's 2008 album, The Boy Bands Have Won. While the target in this case is clearly the musical art form as a whole, the idea that stagnation is the only real form of failure seems accurate on a number of more immediate levels too. In terms of genre, for example, 2009 saw the rise to notoriety of a band called brokeNCYDE, and while by all critical accounts the entire concept of 'crunkcore' is unpleasant to the human ear, it's impossible to deny that some sort of progress has been made somewhere along the line: to put it simply, in some ways it's easy (and admirable?) to try new things because at the very least you'll learn what doesn't work. When you get down to the level of individual bands, though, the dynamic changes slightly, since a fanbase is more likely to be put off future releases if everything goes horribly. But, as Chumbawumba point out so well, the alternative is staying exactly where you are, and it's no great surprise that some of the world's best-loved bands are those with a wide variety of sounds in their back catalogue.

By now you can probably tell where this is leading; the destination, metaphorically speaking, is a dusty crossroads in the middle of nowhere, at which Billy Talent's 4 members sit not only indecisive but apparently with no desire to pick a direction either. The lead single from their third 'volume' was the confusing, mid-tempo alt-rocker Rusted From The Rain, but at the very least it was something a little more mature and deliberated from a band known for their reckless abandon in producing breathless pop-punk. But that's where the diversity (for want of a better word - Rusted is hardly an enormous departure from the band's sound) stops.

Although typically unique, Kowalewicz's voice no longer holds the shock value it used to, and here he lends his vocals to an unreasonable number of filler tracks, sometimes (Tears Into Wine) serving as the only redeeming feature. The rhythm section is poor, plodding along on tracks like The Dead Can't Testify without so much as a whisper of anything original or conducive to climax; indeed, outside of the excellent drumming on Saint Veronika the crescendos and tension are left to lead guitarist D'Sa and Kowalewicz to forge between themselves. While they succeed occasionally - Diamond On A Landmine and Sudden Movement the two decent examples - far too many songs sink into mediocrity. If there's one major praise to be heaped on this record it's found in the superb guitar riffs and solos sprinkled throughout. While the chords are fairly standard fare, D'Sa has a knack for penning a killer line and it's his sense of atmosphere and fun that keep the record on its feet most of the time.

But Billy Talent aren't really the type of band that can get by solely on the amount of fun they inspire, at least not any more; the traditional imagery that runs through this record's lyricism alone is enough to prove that they take themselves fairly seriously, and a band that wants to pull off that kind of personality has to do a lot better than this musically. The lack of progression is less worrying than the sub-standard songwriting and dull, samey aesthetics that result in a Billy Talent album which fails to pack any sort of punch despite rarely being offensively bad. What started off as a signature sound is fast becoming stale and it's questionable for the first time whether Canada's punk kids have the ability or drive to freshen it up. Billy Talent III is an incredibly appropriate title for the simple reason that it sounds like the last drops being squeezed out of a finite and predictable formula with nothing new to keep your attention. Put it this way: if their next record is called Billy Talent IV, you'll have to believe they're starting to take the piss.

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3.1 good

Rank: #0 for 2009