Tag Archives: billy talent II

#1328: Billy Talent – Sympathy

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‘Sympathy’ is the second-last song on Billy Talent’s second album, from 2006. I’ve liked this one for as long as I can remember. I gave a whole spiel about my experience with that record in the last post for a song I did from it. There are still two more off the LP left for me to write about. What I’ll say for now is, I still enjoy their sophomore album a lot even almost 20 years on. There was a lot of music similar to Billy Talent’s made by many bands in those early 2000s that people have forgotten about or couldn’t listen to because the material hasn’t aged all that well sonically. “It’s not a phase, mum” music. But I’ll put my cent of support in and say the same can’t be said for those first two Billy Talent albums. I’ll play those back-to-back today, no problem. Almost every song on both of them gets two thumbs up from me.

And ‘Sympathy’ falls under that category too. There doesn’t appear to be a website of any kind containing any context on how the song was written or what it’s about. But I vividly remember reading an official band-related thing that stated the song concerned a specific smarmy Canadian politician man/congressperson who singer Ben Kowalewicz and guitarist Ian D’Sa were completely disappointed by. The name was explicitly stated too, but I can’t remember that. But you read the lyrics to the track and it all makes sense. The politician would be giving condolences on a subject, and Kowalewicz would think it was all a crock of shit. So ‘Sympathy’ was written as a full disclosure of his displeasure with the guy. Just so happens that this displeasure is incredibly infectious when it’s written within a song.

Like many a Billy Talent number, a lot of the melody is provided by Ian D’Sa’s fine guitar work. He doesn’t do the distinct simultaneous lead/rhythm guitar style of playing he’s known for as much on ‘Sympathy’. It’s all very much rhythm, chord-based on here. But even then, the vocal melody almost mirrors whatever chord progression D’Sa plays throughout. It’s still very essential within the song’s proceedings. Oh, Jesus, the solo, though. Very unique for a Billy Talent track, a big highlight in this one. I really enjoy Kowalewicz’s vocal here too. Billy Talent II was made as a bit of a conscious effort to move away from the aggression and ferocity displayed on its predecessor. So there was a tad less screaming, more of a focus on melody. And there’s nothing but melody on ‘Sympathy’. I read comments online complaining about how Kowalewicz’s voice can be grating or shrill. I’ve never had a problem, even if I could see where those people come from. I couldn’t say it’s any of those things on this track. The way he sings those ‘Breaking me down’ lines, especially the last one, makes me feel a way inside. Like I can feel his pain, or whatever. Just a solid, solid tune.

#1320: Billy Talent – Surrender

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On Christmas Day 2006, I got Billy Talent II as a gift after including it in the yearly list to my cousin. She came through. I’d officially become a Billy Talent fan in the autumn of 2005 just through watching the ‘Try Honesty’ video on the band’s website and being reacquainted with ‘River Below’, which I had seen in 2004 but forgotten who it was by immediately after. The band only had one album to their name. But it was around that time that the band uploaded the demo for ‘Red Flag’ on their MySpace page. (So much better than how it ended up on the album by the way, which is why you don’t see it on this blog.) The second album hype was officially on. 2006 went on. ‘Devil in a Midnight Mass’ was released as the first single. The band’s website changed in design. And on June 26th (27th in US and Canada), the album was officially released for all to hear. Though it had also been available to listen for three days up to then, as the band had put it on their MySpace too.

So I got that album, and I’m sure I wore it out. By the time it was in my hands, ‘…Midnight Mass’, ‘Red Flag’ and ‘Fallen Leaves’ had already been released as singles, so those were ingrained in the back of my mind anyway. And I think I even had a listen through that MySpace upload and liked what I heard already. But now I owned it and the first Billy Talent album too. Couldn’t get much better. ‘Surrender’ is the ninth song on Billy Talent II, one about unrequited love, from the point of a narrator who’s deeply infatuated with a girl they get along with, but can’t muscle up the courage to say how they really feel in fear of rejection. I’ve had the experience. Years ago. It’s not great being on the introverted side of life. Not to say it doesn’t have its perks, though. I tell you, this song is one of the few in this whole series that I relate to a little too well. I listen to this song sometimes thinking, “Just talk to her, you sap,” which is advice that I should have taken. The whole ‘surrender yourself to me’ bit is a little far-fetched, I wouldn’t go that far. But that’s where the song’s narrator viewpoint is in that moment. That’s where I can differentiate.

I’m sure I liked ‘Surrender’ as a track when I initially played the album through. I can recall rewinding to the “I think I found a flower in a field of weeds” section many times, just because of the emphatic change it marks in the song’s progression. But I don’t think the song was one that I ever thought would end up being a single. So it came as a mild surprise to me when it was announced to be the fourth one from the album. Got its own music video too, as you can see above, which got its regular rotation on MTV2 around the time of its release. It was the censored version, though. Understandably so. The blink-and-you’ll-miss-it scene of singer Ben Kowalewicz being shot in the head was replaced by a scene of him falling backwards out of shot. I never liked the video all that much, to be honest. But seeing it on a daily basis made me gain a larger appreciation for it. I think the big highlight is the vocal harmonies and interplay between Kowalewicz and guitarist Ian D’Sa. Especially the way the latter sings ‘Surrender’ during the choruses with the former completing the phrases before they both sing ‘Yourself to me’ in unison. That’s some good songwriting there.

#898: Billy Talent – The Navy Song

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Recalling exactly how I was introduced to this song is a bit of a pointless task. I could only give vague and hazy mental images. I want to say that leading up to the release of Billy Talent’s second album, they uploaded 30 second samples of their new song onto their website which gave everyone a taste of what was to come. But I have the feeling that’s me wanting to remember something that didn’t happen at all. It doesn’t really matter. The point is, I got that album for Christmas 2006 and it’s been a mainstay on every mp3 player I’ve owned, the family computer, my laptop… I gave away a lot of my old CDs recently, but I couldn’t find it within me to give away my copies of the band’s first two albums. They’re just too good.

So, I would have been 11 years old when I first heard ‘The Navy Song’. Couldn’t tell you how 11-year-old me felt upon that first listen. But from my 26-year-old point of view, I remember that I was a huge fan of Ian D’Sa’s guitar playing. How he could make one guitar sound like two separate guitars playing at the same time. And that aspect of his style is on show here. Just that introduction alone draws me in every time, with that sort of skipping momentum while it plays the melody of the chorus that shows up later in the song. He never plays just one chord for four bars, or a standard 4 chord progression that runs throughout a track. He has guitar lines and progressions that can rise and fall while incorporating a lot of melody. His playing is something that always gets me bugging out when listening to Billy Talent songs. No exception here. Plus, the track is carried by this great swinging 12/8 rhythm, which I’ve always thought was meant to mirror the swaying of the ship on the waves of the sea. Not sure if that was the purpose, but for that I always thought the music matched the lyric matter perfectly.

And what the track is about is kinda sad. The track’s narrator’s gone to war, presumably for the navy, and is remembering their loved ones back home, while fully aware that they may never return. It’s pretty much confirmed in the bridge(?) that they do in fact die, and ‘wait in heaven’ until they meet again with their partner. Pretty brutal. But in a wider degree, I think it’s a song dedicated to those real navy soldiers who are putting their lives on the line and are very much in the same situation as the narrative voice in this track. It’s a heavy reminder that people die out there, and it’s not something to take lightly. It does make for some good listening though, I gotta say. Sometimes you think of some of the music you were into when you were 11 and think, “What was that all about?” And then there are those gems that stick with you for 15 years and counting. Funny thing, music is.

My iPod #358: Billy Talent – Fallen Leaves

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Ahh. Billy Talent II. What a great album. When it comes to Billy Talent, for me their first two albums can’t be beaten. “Billy Talent III” and “Dead Silence” are cool, but they don’t have that oomph that really came across in the opening couple of the Billy Talent trilogy. Just don’t ask me to choose between the two because I seriously can’t.

I’ve known “Fallen Leaves” before it was even a single. Ha. I honestly can’t remember the first time I heard it. It may have been when the then-new album was on the band’s MySpace profile or whatever. But I’ve listened to it for almost ten years now, and it always sounds as brilliant as when I heard it the first time. It’s not even my favourite on the album, which is saying something.

“Fallen Leaves” came to be one of Billy Talent’s most popular tracks, being released as a single in late 2006 and receiving its own video where the band stumble across a gang of freaks. I still don’t quite get the video; it’s quite weird. But there is a very funny part where Ian looks very very surprised when the four discover a lady a some very large assets.

“Fallen Leaves” will appear on Billy Talent’s greatest hits compilation “Hits“, which is to be released soon. Here are the group’s thoughts on that particular song:

My iPod #268: Billy Talent – Devil in a Midnight Mass

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The opening track to Billy Talent’s second album was built upon an ‘evil guitar riff’ that guitarist Ian D’Sa started playing one day. Lead singer Benjamin Kowalewicz wondered what kind of evil would suit that riff, and found it one day when he read an article about a Catholic priest who was molested 150 children in the 90s and was then stabbed to death during his time in prison. As a result, one of Billy Talent’s darkest songs was created. A song which gets the blood racing and sends shivers down my spine each time it plays.

The thing is – I wasn’t so enthused by it when I first heard the song via its video all those years ago in 2006. Thinking about it now I am not so sure why. It was very quick, and was finished before I could absorb anything that was happening. The first time I really understood it was when I actually listened to it through my headphones – that’s when it hit me.

Starting with Ian’s lone menacing riff – the song explodes when the drums kick in along with an almighty “YEEEAAAAHH” from Ben. The verses describe the priest – the ‘devil in a midnight mass’ – whilst the pre-chorus and choruses depict the scene when the priest is killed in jail who will now sing ‘silent night for the rest of [his] life.’

That is all well and… good, but the most threatening part is the last forty-five seconds of the song when the riff repeats on and on as Ben says what could possibly be the priest’s last words before he dies, “Whisper, whisper, don’t make a sound/Your bed is made, it’s in the ground”. That comes to a halt for a split second before those two phrases are ceaselessly screamed at you by Ben, Ian and the bassist Jon before climaxing with an astonishing shriek which echoes right into the next track.

This song is scary. This song is awesome. The best Billy Talent album opener. Hands down. I look at another one tomorrow though.

This is the band’s impression of it when they heard the album mix for the first time.