Artist:  Talon
   Title: III
   Label: Escape Music  

Talon are a band that really impressed with their self-titled debut release ‘Talon’.  A great hard rocking album that featured on many top ten album lists that year, such was the success, that the band made an appearance at The Gods Festival and were for me, definitely one of the top bands of that day.

The band follow-up release 'Fallen Angels', saw a change in personnel, with Chandler Mogel taking up the vacant frontman spot left by Michael O’Mara.  This album saw the band take a more Melodic/AOR path, which for me meant the band had lost a bit of its edge.

Now in 2011 the band return with yet another change on the vocal front, with Mogel leaving to front Greece’s Outloud and taking his place would be Shawn Pelata, for their third album simply entitled 'III', which I must say is their best to date and once again sees the band returning to that same hard rock edginess of their debut release.  It also sees one Jeff Scott Soto making a guest appearance on the rocking ‘Take You All The Way’.

This is the album I hoped the second release was going to be.  Big licks, thunderous backing rhythms and massive vocals, this is Talon as I remembered, getting their claws into you and not letting go till they’d rocked your very soul.

With great tracks like the opener ‘Crying To Me’ which just rocks from the off, no fancy or complicated intro’s, just straight shooting, hard rock that really sets the style for the rest of the album.

Yes there are mellower moments, but they still have an edge and that is brought to the front with Pelata's powerful vocals, which have a Poley / Solinger feel to them, as you can hear on the excellent ‘Maybe One Day’ and the powerful ‘Brothers’. 

But it’s the hard rocking tunes that really get the old juices flowing, with ‘You Don’t Know Me At All’ and ‘When Will I’ standing as two of my personal favourites.  This is a real return to form from a band I had high hopes for when I first heard the debut album and this new release more than re-ignites that flame for me.

Tracklisting:

1. Crying To Me
2. The Last Time
3. Did You Have To Say
4. Everytime
5. Take You All The Way
6. Maybe One Day
7. You Don't Know Me At All
8. Walk Away
9. Brothers
10. When Will I
11. You Got What It Takes
12. Jane

All content copyright of The Mayfair Mall Zine unless otherwise stated.