Thursday, May 16, 2013

Video Of The Week: Billy Talent

I wasn't gunning for two straight very-political videos about the youth revolting in Canada, it just happened that way. As a matter of fact, I'd been waiting for Queens Of The Stone Age to release a full-length video (instead of just teasers) from their upcoming album to feature them again, but I've been caught up in listening to Billy Talent's second album (II) a lot this week, and well, it just became obvious that I had to go that route.

At first known as Pezz, the Mississaugua (Toronto) band was huge in Canada at the turn of the century. I didn't like their first record myself (I particularly disliked Try Honesty, an emo-semi-hardcore number that especially lacks honesty), but the second one, on the strength of Red Flag, Devil In A Midnight Mass, and Fallen Leaves (also, on a smaller scale, Surrender) got inside my brain.

I'm featuring the Floria Sigismondi-directed Red Flag today because it is a fine piece of art, at times reminiscent of the one she made for Sigur Ros' Untitled 1 (Vaka) - albeit a whole lot less dark; the song in itself is also gripping, and the breakdown at the end (where it's just the chorus and the drums) is arena-rock power the likes of which Van Halen could only dream of.


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