 
Billy Talent have always followed a winning formula
where they release a new album every year and
each album is simple named ‘Billy Talent’
with a number after the name to mark the album
number, well Billy Talent are now back with album
number 4 and they have kept to the formula of
releasing a new album every three years but have
ditched the whole naming system this time around
so instead of album number 4 being called ‘Billy
Talent 4’, it is called ‘Dead Silence’
and features a real haunting underwater sunken
town style set of artwork.
‘Dead Silence’ opens with a short
introduction called ‘Lonely Road To Absolution’
and it is a very soft sounding introduction where
Ben Kowalewicz’s lyrics tell you how the
villains always come out on top. As soon as the
introduction fades away Billy Talent blast into
‘Viking Death March’ a song which
happens to be the lead single release from the
album, musically the song is extremely beastly
sounding with some cracking riffs coming at you
whilst vocally Kowalewicz well loved unique vocals
take you on the same catchy journey you have come
to expect over the years.
‘Surprise Surprise’ lyrically tells
the story of how people always find the need to
follow the latest trend by ditching their baggy
jeans for skinny jeans just because its deemed
cool, and trading there brand new phone for another
one a month down the line just because it is the
next must have gadget, vocally Kowalewicz executes
these lyrics with perfection and within seconds
you will find yourself humming along and before
the song comes to a close you will not only find
yourself singing along but also agreeing with
the lyrics.
‘Runnin’ Across The Tracks’
reminds me of early Billy Talent material back
from the days of ‘Billy Talent 1’
but with a lot more umph and aggression thrown
in for good measures, the song runs at a cracking
pace and features some good technical instrumental
working towards the end.
‘Love Was Still Around’ revolves around
the stunning and solid sounding bass lines which
Jon Gallant cracks out throughout and in general
the song sounds a lot different from previous
Billy Talent material in the way that instrumentally
they are trying out different techniques whilst
Kowalewicz vocals also come off sounding slightly
different.
‘Stand Up And Run’ see’s Billy
Talent go down the ballad route whilst they take
a few minutes to tone things down and generally
chill out, the song tells the story of how you
never know how good something is until its gone
and then you do your best to get it back.
‘Crooked Minds’ and ‘Man Alive’
are some of the strongest sounding tracks on the
album ‘Crooked Minds’ features Kowalewicz
letting out some mad yelps whilst revisiting the
sound of ‘Billy Talent 1’ whilst ‘Man
Alive’ is a big sounding track which has
a mix of everything from aggression to a poppy
edge whilst coming at you like the speed of light.
With Billy Talent you always know what you are
going to get and that is exactly the case with
‘Dead Silence’ it’s more of
the Billy Talent we have all come to love over
the years but this time around they have boosted
their sound up slightly with some extra aggression
and it works very well and I am sure the fans
will fall in love with the album straight away
and some new fan favourite tracks will be found
in no time.
5/5
Review by Trigger
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