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Album Details
- Artist: Talons
- Album: Hollow Realm
- Label: Big Scary Monsters
- Year of Release: 2011
- ME Rating:
- Reviewed by: patchen on 2011-02-22
RecommendWith its attack of earnest sheets of noise, dramatic shoegazing mixed with progressive melodies and solos, Talons sounds like mid-period King Crimson with Bob Mould on guitar. "Hollow Realm" is a debut set of eight instrumental tracks that stick to a similar base that allows them to riff off of into more varied fare.
The punishing "St Mary Will Be The Death Of Us All" and "In The Shadows Of Our Stilted Homes" begin with brutal riffs and pounding drums before settling into more meditative, prog-like interludes; the relatively short tracks, "An Expected Future Event" and "Great Railroads" employ eastern sounds and strings, making for solid, brooding trance. The rest of the record follows the formula of the "St. Mary," making this listener wonder why a band with such chops would settle in rather than explore their obviously intriguing and powerful sound. The shorter songs help, as does the title track, which serves as both closer and summary of "Hollow Realm's" more satisfying moments.
Talons have talent to burn, and thus "Hollow Realm" is a mixed bag of daring and lazy. That their more expansive moments alternate between hot and cold is actually a good sign; they know how to explore, they just need to hone the tools they're using to dig deep into their sound. Still, this is a band with an awesome template to work with; I hope they opt for the fully daring next time.
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on 2011-08-03 toughenuprob Said:
In an age of rampant genre prefixery, where a brand new style can be created and described simply by adding a qualifier to the word describing an already existing facet of music, its easy to get bogged down in the minutiae that each new term presents. Talons have been dubbed both math rock and post rock, presumably by dint of their non-linear song structures, the occasional odd time signature, and the length of, and lack of vocals in, said non- linear songs. But youre unlikely to find any impenetrable Don Cab obscurisms, or indeed any of the lengthy passages of found sound present in Godspeed, amongst the tracks of Hollow Realm. The truth is, music without choruses never sounded so fun. St. Mary Will Be the Death of Us All charges out of the blocks at one thousand miles per hour, crashing into everything in its path, and if the opener contains all the lengthy buildups and bluster that weve come to expect from everything since Mogwai, Peter Pan comes careening in after it at just over three minutes, sweeping away any ill-conceived notions of haughtiness and bombast. If Talons are a math-rock band, theyre one not dragged down by the weight of their own seriousness. Youthful energy aside (you can practically taste the sweat flying off flailing limbs and hair), the hilarious nu-metal breakdown at the centre of In the Shadows of Our Stilted Homes, which began as a joke but was left in by the band, or the carnivalesque outro of Impala are cases in point - the music on Hollow Realm may be mostly minor key, but the spirit behind it sure aint.
Rating: 8/10
