Talons
Commemorations

THE REVIEW

Genres like post-rock and instrumental math rock have surely shown their best in the first half of the first decade of the twentieth century. Bands like Explosions In The Sky, Godspeed you! Black Emperor, Mogwai, or This Will Destroy You have brought these cinematic and atmospheric sounds to the attention of an international audience, consisting of few notes and enriched by the contrast between static moments and moments when the sound reaches its climax.

In recent years, the genre has risked stagnating in its own niche, and many artists have not been able to refresh their formula. Fortunately, newcomers are making the game interesting again by contaminating post-rock with various influences. 

This is the case of the young Englishmen Talons, who released the explosive album “Commemorations” in 2011. 

The band's peculiarity lies not only in alternating cinematic and melodic post-rock with noise elements, dissonances and post-hardcore, but also in having two violinists in their ranks, which gives the band a bizarre (in a good way) and unique aura. This peculiar setup helps the band to experiment, including elements of ethnic music (with evident British and Middle Eastern folk references), which somehow recall the work of French composer Yann Tiersen (apart from soundtracks).

Rattling and noisy electric guitars contrast with transparent and clean solo violin lines, moving over a powerful, intelligent and very well-cohesive rhythm section.

An unpredictable album that keeps you on the edge of your seat.

It deserved much more attention, but there is hope this is only the first step for this interesting band.