Billy Talent, II

I know what you’re thinking. Honest, I do: four young, greasy-haired Toronto guys who look like they moonlight as clerks at Old Navy, a band where everybody but the drummer sings, vast promises of crunchy guitars and melodies (all at the same time! whoa!), murky, sketchy album artwork, and a band moniker ripped from a movie about a fictional punk band (Hard Core Logo, if you care). Add all that up, and what do you get? Taking Back Sunday blah blah Hidden in Plain View yadda yadda Brand New blah blah blah [random emo-indie-punk-rock band name here]. Right?

Not quite. From the opening Rob Halford-esque mëtäl yowl of propulsive rocker “Devil In A Midnight Mass” onwards, the four members of Billy Talent (vocalist Ben Kowalewicz, guitarist/vocalist Ian D’Sa, bassist/vocalist Jon Gallant, and drummer Aaron Solowoniuk) seem intent on smashing all my (and your) preconceived ideas about their band into tiny little pieces. Rather than make their way back down the musical track so many of their contemporaries seem content to tread — loud guitars, emo-boy melodies alternating with Cookie Monster growling, and songs that don’t go anywhere and mistake volume and speed for energy — Billy Talent has carved itself a weird, strangely alluring little niche in the walls of the hallowed Halls of Punk Rock.

On barnburners like “Red Flag,” “Fallen Leaves,” and “Perfect World,” the band marries the rough energy of punks like The Explosion or The Living End with angular, sharp-edged, “bright”-sounding guitars reminiscent of sci-rock heroes No Knife or even seminal math-rockers Rodan; the voices yell and soar, the anger and fury barely reined in by the melody, and the guitars buzzsaw and lunge in from both sides. The finger-pointing condemnation of indie-hipsterness (and yes, I’d cry “guilty” myself if I weren’t so damn uncool) of “Where Is The Line?” moves a bit further from the pop-punk end of things, nearing Jam territory — about 30 seconds in, I smiled and nodded to myself, as it finally clicked why in the heck the Buzzcocks would want to take these whippersnappers out on tour with ’em.

“Worker Bees” is more New Wave-ish, bright and sinister at once, with more of those laser-like guitars and singer Kowalewicz seemingly doing his best Justin Hawkins impersonation. Then there’s “Pins and Needles” and “Surrender,” which turn down the tempo a bit and get sensitive but still manage to keep up with the rest of the album, and a few odd bits like “Covered in Cowardice,” where the Brit-metal howling becomes a freaky screech and I can’t tell if the lyrics are pro- or anti-war (they read — to me, at least — like they’re one or the other), and “The Navy Song,” a rollicking, ferocious tale of heroism and pain on the high seas that has Kowalewicz sounding like…Jon Anderson of Yes? What the hell?

The whole of II is a mashup of influences that don’t seem to have much in common — the No Knife/Chavez guitars, the Billie Joe Armstrong snotty sneer, the New Wave of British Metal roar, the streetpunk yell-alongs — and yet it all fits together like it was designed to, somehow. I don’t entirely get it, but it works, and along the way it manages to be catchy as all hell. Billy Talent’s brand of rock may not be for everybody, but it definitely stands out from the crowd of kids with guitars currently clogging up the ‘net with all their MySpace pages. For me, all it took was one listen for the lyrics to “Red Flag” to lodge in my brain, and I was sold: “Cast off the crutch that kills the pain / The red flag waving never meant the same / The kids of tomorrow don’t need today / When they live in the sins of yesterday.” Just makes me want to jump up and punch the ceiling…