mINtSOUTH.com

It’s not the crowd you might expect for Billy Talent tonight, their once teen-rocker following has grown up and stuck with them. Rightly so. That’s not saying they can’t still work themselves up into a sweaty mess  as soon as the Canadian punk rockers rip into ‘Devil In A Midnight Mass’, a delightful,  metal story of religion and paedophilia.

If you’ve ever seen them live before, you’ll be aware of Benjamin Kowalewicz nasally vocals, the piercing kind you’d expect to come from helium indulgence, but with his mixture of thrashing and aggressive spoken lyrics he’s what a front man should be, assuring his voice manages not to grate or annoy for the most part.

With a third album (technically fourth) in the bag, and an energetic legion of fans screaming lyrics at any given chance, it doesn’t look like these guys are going anywhere. Especially with tonight’s faultless show of complex riffing and a barrage of great tracks like ‘Rusted From The Rain’, ‘Saint Veronica’ and ‘Surrender’, Kowalewicz repeatedly singing “Surrender yourself to me”. As if they haven’t already.

The singer’s banter draws attention to his Inglorious Basterds haircut before admitting he’s more Steve Carell ‘40 Year Old Virgin’ than Brad Pitt, and if you can get the words ‘Let’s hear it for my mum’ into a gig, well...

‘Devil On My Shoulder’ starts spreading the pit over the whole venue through bassy riffs and a killer chorus , before signature Talent anthems ‘Try Honesty’ and ‘Fallen Leaves’ gear everyone up for the red banner to drop. As it covers the stage for ‘Red Flag’ you may as well have just unleashed a bunch of frantic caged animals into the guildhall.

Billy Talent at Southampton Guildhall, 29th October 2009