Culture from the darker side

In 2003 Billy Talent released their first album, which was self titled. Now, three years later it seems that they didn’t spend a lot of time trying to come up with a snazzy name for their second album, instead they just slapped a “II” behind it and where done.

While this sort of minimalism has to be applauded in a way the album itself is clearly a step forward from the first release. Surprising enough though the band hasn’t gotten slower, if anything it has gotten harder, if not angrier.

The first single and first track of the Album “Devil in a midnight mass” takes the abuse of young altar boys on and does so with an anger that clearly is reflected in the music. In fact using this album while doing a slow run outside has proven hazardous as I tend to go way way way faster than I should.

This in itself is a good indication on just how energetic the album is, even slower songs like “Worker Bees” still has a lot of raw energy to put out and it is seriously entertaining.

Rating 4.5/5

Sometimes you just want to have loud music, if it has some good lyrics too it’s just a bonus.

Billy Talent is a good example on how you can combine both. I admit, I have a hard time “classifying” music. There are so many Genres and Subgenres these days (heck, almost any band invents their own) that it is hard to keep track of it. Billy Talent I would throw into the Punk genre though and their debut album clearly had me bobbing my head, not to mention endangered my hearing by my desire to just crank it up one more. Yes, they are that energetic.

Billy Talent (the album) was first released in 2003, but as I pretty much gave up on Radio and Much Music since 2002 it didn’t show up on my Radar until last week when someone gave me the CD. The album overall is energetic, lyrics aren’t stupid and you can listen to it from end to end if you need / want a “pick me up”. It clearly must have been a good album back in 2003 and even now, three years later and the release of their new album just around the corner, still rocks.

Rating 4/5

This is the first album of Matthew Good since he dissolved the band he founded in the early 1990’s. The album was expected for quite some time as he is known for his rather meaningful texts and engrossing music.

Now after a year of waiting the album has been out and the time of it’s release is rather ironic as it in part could be used as a musical commentary to the current situation. Beginning with the first single release “Weapon” and now with “In a world called catastrophe” the album is definitely a social commentary to our times.
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