ALBUM REVIEW: Crisis Of Faith – Billy Talent
We’ve had six years of radio silence from Canada’s resident radio-punks BILLY TALENT. 2016’s Afraid Of Heights was exactly that; an album that dared to be different but was too afraid of overshadowing its creators glory days. Its follow-up, Crisis Of Faith, follows suit in succumbing to a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Guitarist and principal songwriter Ian D’Sa pulls double duty for this record, producing the album in its entirety. Whilst creative freedom can be found throughout, you can’t help but argue at what cost their confidence in their own abilities has caused a sense of disconnect from the scene they know and love? Could it be that BILLY TALENT are going through a Crisis Of Faith?
There are three bands you’ll find yourself sounding out throughout Crisis Of Faith: ALTER BRIDGE, FOO FIGHTERS and WEEZER. And what do they all have in common? They’re all former trailblazers burning their candle at both ends with middle-of-the road meat-and-potatoes alt-rock. Whether it’s The Wolf’s attempt at balladeering, Judged’s punk rock by numbers, or For You’s blatant beg for radio play; there’s an undeniable amount of evidence to suggest BILLY TALENT can now join that list.
The confidence D’Sa instils is their crux, and they lean on it like a crutch. Bands as deep into a career as they are deserve to experiment, yet opener Forgiveness I + II’s six-minute attempt at prog-rock is nothing but an overindulgent slog. Sure, its gritty riffs and frenetic drums summon Fortress-era ALTER BRIDGE, but nobody needed, let alone asked for, six minutes of BILLY TALENT slipping between their best MYLES KENNEDY impression and a saxophone solo.
Crisis Of Faith has its redeeming qualities. If nothing else, it proves they haven’t forgotten how to write arena-ready radio-rock anthems. Reckless Paradise is by far one of the best songs they’ve written since the mid-00s, with a hook that hits so hard you might as well be injecting its melodies into your veins. Elsewhere, WEEZER’s Rivers Cuomo rescues End Of Me, a song that sounds so much like a cover of his own band it begs to switch albums – so much so that you’d be forgiven for feeling like BILLY TALENT are phoning it in.
Considering they’ve had six long years, several political nightmares and a global pandemic to ruminate over, you’d have assumed the band would have something to say. And whilst Crisis Of Faith dives into everything from mental health to racism, it all feels so hollow on the surface. The urgency of Judged’s punk-rock explosion is undercut by it’s clumsy, clunky wordplay. “Goddamned motherfucker with that old-world plan, I swear some day, we’ll be rid of your clan/Your hateful rhetoric is so care-free, why can’t you see what it feels like to be” feels so shallow and so simple, and whilst their intentions are good, other bands are saying it so much better (cough, ANTI-FLAG, cough).
Crisis Of Faith is by no means a bad album, it’s just not a brilliant one either. Its meat and potatoes alt-rock reaffirms what we already knew, BILLY TALENT have met the middle of the road and might not make it back.
Rating: 5/10
Crisis Of Faith is set for release on January 21st via Spinefarm Records.
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