Stephen TALON is one of those few bands that felt completely like a project since every album they created, a new singer stepping in. Michael O'Mara and Chandler Mogel were history and now Shawn Pelata is in the active roster, a singer who also fronted another band called LINE OF FIRE. Musically, TALON just continued what was left in the couple of previous albums, which is hard rock with a decent amount of melodies, but this time, hate to say it but a man gotta say it - this is the weakest TALON album so far!

Not bad by any means, and vocally, Shawn did a pretty good job fillin' the shoe, it's just that most of the songs here are average, if compared to most of the bigger songs in the self-titled album or 'Fallen Angels'. There are three monstrous tunes here, 'Crying To Me' is no doubt a huge opener, 'Everytime' is a very nice upbeat song; and 'Did You Have To Say' is insanely melodic and infectious, I'll wholeheartedly concur that this is the best track of this album.

There's a song with Jeff Scott Soto called 'Take You All The Way', but it just didn't work out fine. Same goes with the ballad, 'Maybe One Day', and also STARSHIP's cover, 'Jane', which is quite dull in my opinion. However, 'You Don't Know Me At All', 'Walk Away', and the other ballad, 'Brothers' are three good tracks that stood up above the rest. The production is great, but somehow this is an album you probably will spin once in three or four months, not very memorable, and perhaps you'll take away 3-4 great songs to create a good TALON compilation of your own. 70% at best!

Time Signature Everytime...

Genre: hard rock / melodic metal

The band's name and the cover of this their third release might suggest something heavy along the lines of US power metal or perhaps even power-thrash, but that is not what you get on this album. Talon's "III" offers tasty hard rock with elements of melodic metal.

While you have chucking distorted rhythm guitars and, at times, heavy metallic riffage, there is focus on melody and even the heavier tracks on the album, like the amazing 'Everytime', the incredible Eastern-tinged 'Take You All The Way' (which features Jeff Scott Soto on guest lead vocals) and the slightly power-metal informed 'Walk Away', come with big melodic and catchy AOR-oriented choruses. Much of the riffage is inherently uplifting and lends itself well to big melodies (there are a lot of riffs on this release, actually, that are similar to Badge's 'Silver Woman', which is definitely not a bad thing).

There are of course also a couple of ballads on the album, of which 'Maybe One Day' is probably the biggest sounding one, while 'Brothers' is a more cheesy power ballad which nevertheless deals with a serious issue lyrically.

On the whole, Talon's "III" is a catchy and melodic hard rock release with lots of tasty guitar licks and big choruses, and fans of melodic metal, hard rock and AOR should definitely give it a listen.