Tag Archives: billy talent III

#1305: Billy Talent – Sudden Movements

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If you were to search for Billy Talent’s ‘Sudden Movements’ in Google and come across a few Reddit threads or something in the results, you might just find a common theme. Quite a number of people don’t hold the track in a very high regard. This thread asks what the worst song on the band’s third album is, someone answers ‘Sudden Movements’, and the replies are like, “Yep, couldn’t agree more. Thread finished.” The song is the top answer. It’s not even as if the replies go into detail as to why they think so. It’s stated like it’s a well-known fact. And people just agree like it’s nothing. I’m freaking out a little bit over here. It may not be my absolute preferred track from Billy Talent III, but it’s a favourite, for sure. A shame seeing it be dismissed so casually.

‘Sudden Movements’ is in the penultimate slot on the record, a placement where sometimes you’ll have an album’s dark horse or a bit of filler before the album’s proper closer. Slotted in between single ‘Turn Your Back’ and closer ‘Definition of Destiny’, it seems as if people see throw it into the latter category. I’ve never seen it as a dark horse, really. Simply thought it was a pretty cool song. The way all the guitars and cymbals come crashing in immediately to start things off gives the track a huge presence already. Ian D’Sa isn’t playing those signature finicky guitar riffs that are a staple in many a Billy Talent number, but rather blasts out these open chords which I think gives the track this expansive feel. I see an image of giants (or tall figures of that type) marching over buildings when this chord progression plays. All so very emphatic.

What’s the song about? I’ve never thought about it before. But for the purpose of this post, I can look at the lyrics and say I think the whole thing’s about a general feeling of paranoia. Laid out in the first line, “Well, I’m scared of my reflection / Is it mine or is it yours?”, this sense of having to look over your shoulder and keeping your guard up is further built upon as the track goes on. All summed up in the song’s chorus, “No sudden movements / Gonna give us all away / Or they’ll blow us all away”. The narrator asks the listener to not think they’re going crazy, which is something that deeply paranoid people say. Usually if this was some sort of TV show, the paranoid person turns out to be right and then the non-believers all looks stupid. We don’t get that kind of resolution here.

My iPod #269: Billy Talent – Devil on My Shoulder

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So yesterday I wrote about another Billy Talent track. One that starts off another of their albums. This one is about another devil but instead of it being in a midnight mass, it is now on a shoulder. The song’s narrator’s shoulder. It is the first song on Billy Talent’s third/fourth album, and was released as its second single.

This was the one that really got me pumped up for the release of “Billy Talent III”. “Turn Your Back” was the first new song that showed that the group had a new album in the works when a live performance of it at the Hurricane Festival in 2008 was uploaded onto YouTube. That was all well and good, but it would be almost a year until anticipation for the upcoming album really started rolling. “Rusted from the Rain” was released as the first official single, which I thought was okay upon first listen. It grew on me over time, but there wasn’t anything particularly striking about it initially.

Then….. this happened. A trailer previewing another new song from the album. A sneaky bassline joined by Ben growling the title of the song, then followed by an assault from the guitar and drums. This was what I wanted to hear. It sounded so cool. That was “Devil on My Shoulder”.

It probably should have been released as the first single. I wouldn’t have had the same amount of doubts about the album if it had been. The song itself is from the perspective of someone who has very bad luck, feeling nothing but self-loathing and self-pity. In terms of its sound, it was very different to anything else that Billy Talent had released. Brendan O’Brien – who has produced albums for artists such as Rage Against the Machine, The Offspring and Pearl Jam – brings a real studio atmosphere into the album, something that was not so obvious on the albums prior to it. This was a proper hard rock song. This was no longer a band who needed to scream, or were as angry as they used to be in previous songs. Billy Talent had…. matured (eerrrr).

It had to happen one day. But “Devil on My Shoulder” was the sign that showed me that the fire was still roared in the belly of Billy Talent.

My iPod #260: Billy Talent – Definition of Destiny

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You know what I just figured out? Literally a few minutes before typing this, every last song on Billy Talent’s albums from “Voices of Violence” to “Dead Silence” went through my mind. Despite differences in tempo, structure and everything – all of them are in D major… I wonder why that is. Do you think that they even realised this? Has anyone else pointed this out before? What the hell, Billy Talent, what the hell. They are all solid tracks, I have all of them on my iPod, but they have to use another key sooner or later, right?

On with today’s song.

“Definition of Destiny” is the final track on Billy Talent’s third album “Billy Talent III”, the last of their usual Roman numerical naming order, released in 2009. Normally the last songs on Billy Talent albums are worth the wait, and the same applied to “Definition” too. It is quite similar to “Burn the Evidence” in that the instrumentation during the verses mirrors the reflective and observational lyrics, staying at a steady beat and keeping a cool rhythm with guitar arpeggios, before turning the levels up and continuing into a stomping and chord heavy chorus which puts emphasis on the intense message of living life to the full your own way before ending up in the casket. Good way to end an album all in all.

I won’t say too much about listening to the album for the first time or how I felt waiting for its release; I’ll probably save that for “Devil on My Shoulder”. However, I will simply state my opinion which is that ‘III’ is not their best work. Some may agree, others may not. The album is okay, but not as good as their first two. The production is different (which is understandable as they used the same producer for the two before) but the tracks lack in something as a result. Less of a bite in guitar tone, perhaps. But most importantly…. there is barely any screaming. That was a disappointment on first listen.