Never, ever was an album better named; The long lost fourth Talas album is here, and my word it really does take you back… right to 1985!
It takes you back to an age where bands like Talas – featuring, like you didn’t know, bassist extraordinaire Billy Sheehan – struggled to make headway, despite being top notch singers and players, not to mention song writers; to an age where competition was so fierce songs like Sink Your Teeth Into That – still, to this day, Talas’ finest moment and still the biggest ‘how was this not a massive hit?’ song of all time disappeared into the ether barely noticed, criminally unacknowledged.
1985, then, is with us now and all but one of the songs here was written in that glorious year. Looking back now, with full knowledge of what went on in the intervening years, you hear snatches of what was to come – the Who-like ending of The Power To Break Away, for instance, just screams Mr Big at you through a rather large megaphone – but for the most part this is just staggeringly good hard rock delivered with the sort of dead-eyed precision only legends can muster.
The first three tracks, Inner Mounting Flame, I’ll Take The Night and Crystal Clear are as good as you’ll hear anywhere this year; the first is a short sharp kick to the nether regions, everything you want in an album opener yet only hinting at what’s just around the corner; I’ll Take The Night is a storming piece of pure eighties metal new guitarist Kire Najdovski locking in with Sheehan behind sadly now departed vocalist Phil Naro before the band erupt into a goosebump raising chorus that’ll lodge in your brain for days at precious little bidding. And then there’s the new wavy, Police-influenced Crystal Clear, the sort of track that did indeed rule the radio roost in 1985. Superbly constructed, it’s irresistible groove – Roxanne meets Rush (Mark Miller‘s Peartesque fills are a joy to behold) by way of Y&T – will have you shedding tears of joy if you were around when this stuff was doing the rounds back in the day. And if you weren’t, well… let’s just say you’re in for a pretty exciting four minutes and sixteen seconds when you make first contact with this track.
Do You Feel Any Better is the sort of euphoric, big-chorused stadium metal Triumph were so adept at, whilst the superb On The Take– the only track here to feature guitarist Mitch Perry, who played with the band in, you guessed it, 1985 – is the sort of gritty, NYC club metal we used to dream about being able to see in our non existent rock clubs in the UK.
All in all, it’s nigh-on impossible to find fault with 1985 – even the newly written track, the more seventies-influenced Black and Blue, keeps it’s end up despite not really being able to live with the more ‘classic’ material on offer – with the result being an album that absolutely demands your attention if supremely crafted hard rock brings a smile to your dial.
1985 releases on September 23rd.
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