Talons: The Long Goodbye

For many of us, 2020 felt like the end of everything. For Hereford-based instrumental post-rock outfit TALONS, it was supposed to be. After 12 years together, the band had decided to draw a line under things, and had scheduled their final shows – but fate had other ideas.

“I expected that 2020 would be the last year TALONS would exist. But we’re here in 2021, and we’re still going – technically,” guitarist Sam Jarvis says when asked if the pandemic has disrupted their planned final curtain call. “It has it has changed the plans; we announced that we were going to play some final shows in the beginning of 2020, and then those that got cancelled. Then we were planning to announce some shows in December 2020, and they all got cancelled. And so we’ll still be going in 2022 now, because of ArcTanGent being cancelled as well. So it’s just kind of extended our existence, but we’re glad that we’ve been able to get something sorted and it looks like we’ve got there.”

“We had a number of meetings about before everything happened with COVID – we originally announced that we were going to break up beginning of 2020,” Sam explains. “After the third album we haven’t got anything that we feel like we want to say next. And we kind of feel like we’ve naturally came to an end point while writing the third album.” Does he feel that realisation felt bittersweet? “I would say, for us, it doesn’t feel too bittersweet. There’s always going to be things that you wish you could have done, but we can’t really change those. And I feel like this is a nice point to end things on.”

Calling an end to things (even without a global pandemic in the mix) is always a challenging decision to make; why have TALONS decided now is the time to call time? “We all live basically in different parts of the UK, which makes it quite difficult to see each other that often. And we all just decided that we’ve kind of frozen musically,” Sam explains. “We’ve produced what we wanted, and it feels the right time to end TALONS.” But he’s firm and quick to emphasise that this isn’t a case of a band breaking down and tensions running high (often masked as ‘musical differences’ by the wheels of the PR machine). “We’re all really good friends, we all enjoy hanging out with each other, and some of the members of the band might go on to do something different.”

While an amicable and positive decision to call an end to the band, it’s still an opportunity for looking back, and assessing both the achievements and perhaps the missed opportunities. Sam is prosaic and proud when talking about the road TALONS have travelled.

“When you decide to end a band, you reflect back over what you’ve done and what you could have achieved, what you’re proud of. I think there’s lots of things that were we’re pretty happy that we managed to do; releasing the albums that we did, being able to tour as much as we were able to, and the Radio One session we recorded.” What would Sam say the missed opportunities were? “I think the Japan Tour is the one that we look back on the most. We got signed to a Japanese label and then the label went under by the time we released the second album, and we never got that kind of contact back. So not having the opportunity to go to Japan was something that we’ve all thought about as kind of missing.”

But there’s no sense of bitterness or deep regret, no reproach over what the band were unable to accomplish. “I guess one of the bittersweet things is not getting to tour as much at times as we wanted to, but life gets in the way, sometimes, you know?” Sam says. “So it’s hard to be too harsh on yourself. It’s hard to know whether that would have changed things massively.”

It’s not only the band’s achievements and victories that can be looked back on from this end point, but the way their sound has evolved from their earliest work to their final album, and how their creative process has changed over more than a decade together. “We usually wanted to do something different with each album, so I think that ultimately with the second album we purposely made it sound different to the first one,” Sam explains. “I would say the first album is quite energetic, and I think that was a product of playing a lot of live shows before going into the studio; it’s quite a fast, energetic sounding album that jumps around from riff to riff. And I suppose that’s a product of the age we were when we were recording it, you know, we were all around 19. So naturally as you get older your listening habits change, and you move on to listen to different stuff, and I think that has impacted how all the different albums sound.”

“I think [2014’s] New Topographics is much more controlled. I think the violins are a lot stronger. We felt like we made a transition,” Sam continues. “For the third album [2018’s We All Know], we took a long time thinking about how we could do something differently in terms of the sound, and I think we recorded it quite differently. The third album was the shortest amount of time we ever took to record an album, we pretty much did in a week. We wanted it to sound more intimate, a bit more like a ‘band in a room’ sound. So it was done in a few different live takes all of us in the same room.”

On what sets New Topographics apart from its predecessors, Sam feels it was “much more about building up this kind of sense of tension and dynamic atmosphere. I think film soundtracks, that kind came in as more of an influence, because it sounds more kind of like a background atmosphere at times, and then it has these moments of intense noise.”

For those unlucky enough to be coming into TALONS at the end, rather than at the beginning, is there a jumping on point Sam would suggest? A track or album that evokes the core of the band’s sound the best? “I think we would all agree that would be the song Monuments, the track that opens up New Topographics. I think, personally, it’s the best thing that we wrote, and best sums up what TALONS is about. It has elements of everything that we’ve done across the three albums; it’s got the huge, orchestral strings sound to it, and it’s also a lot heavier sounding than the first record. . The dynamics is something that we’ve always talked about, moving between loud and quiet, and how we can move between different sections. So that’s the trick I would go back to as best encapsulating us.”

With a career spanning almost fifteen years, TALONS have been fortunate enough to share stages a wide range of bands, and their span of influences and combination of sounds has meant they’ve been on very mixed bills. “We’ve got to support quite a varied mix of mix of bands over the years. Looking back to the early days, I remember we supported MANCHESTER ORCHESTRA. That was of for us a really big show for us at the time, supporting a band that I didn’t think would necessarily be someone we’d support,” says Sam. “Also our very first ever album launch for the first album, [2010s] Hollow Realm, was quite an interesting night. The people who put it on were a poetry and artist collective, and while we played the gig people would write poems and design artwork based on listening to the songs. So that sticks in the mind as something that was quite special.”

After a full and varied career with TALONS, looking back, is there any advice that Sam would look to give younger artists, or maybe his younger self, from his experiences? “I think what I would say to my younger self is to take it less seriously at times. I mean, I don’t think we ever did take it too seriously. But I think there’s always early on, when you’re an up and coming band, a kind of quest to be recognized and be seen to be doing something that’s interesting,” Sam says. “You put a lot of pressure on yourself. But I think over the years, we’ve got better at enjoying taking the opportunity to calm and not getting too down about things that don’t happen or don’t come off. I think that’s something we’ve all learned to deal with a bit better, because the music industry doesn’t always give you exactly what you were hoping for.”

“In terms of kind of up and coming bands, I’m always surprised at how different the scene is now from before from where we were in 2011. The internet was there, but this was a time when we are putting Myspace URLs on posters still, and it’s just changed so much,” Sam says. “My advice back then was always just play as many gigs as you can and get out there. You never know you might meet at one of these gigs. But over time, with the internet, there’s more you have to do now as a new band to build a following, and all that is much more online. I think there’s much greater emphasis on it, and we’ve tried to keep on top of that, but ultimately I think there’s lots of other bands that are better than us in terms of building that fan interaction online before you even get out there and play any gigs. I think the bands who make it are usually ones who have a clearer idea of what they want, and where they want to get to. So yeah, perseverance, I think. Particularly at the beginning when you are building a following is what often separates bands.”

While TALONS might have lingered on longer than even they expected, they are still working towards their final curtain call. With a few farewell dates for 2021 in the pipeline, their final show is scheduled to take place at ArcTanGent festival 2022 [17th – 20th August]. It’s a festival that has special resonance for the band, and a fitting end point, as Sam explains. “We got asked to play the very first ArcTanGent festival in 2013. They invited us to play and then it’s kind of grown ever since, it’s gotten bigger and bigger in terms of capacity, and we’ve always had a good relationship with everyone there; they’ve been big fans of the band for a long time. We’ve played all bar two festivals, so it has been really special for us, and it made sense to have the last gig there, playing in front of a crowd that really gets our kind of music and knows what the scene is about. It’s a pretty special place for us, we’ve got a lot of memories we playing on various different stages. It made sense for us to as this is the final show. It should be really fun to end at a place that’s really supported us as a band over the years, and hopefully play to a decent sized crowd.”

Like TALONS on on Facebook.