A Review of Talon David’s New Album ‘Villain’ - An Epic Addition To An Already Established Discography!
The concept arrived as an act of industry injustice.
Nashville-born, UK-based artist Talon David was scapegoated by music promoters for the apparently radical act of standing up for herself and fellow artists. What could have become bitterness became instead a creative catalyst: a question about what it actually means to be cast as the bad guy in someone else's story, and an entire eleven-track album built from the answer.
Villain arrives September 6th as the first half of a fairy-tale themed double album, written, produced, arranged, engineered and performed entirely by David, with contributing musicians on bass, drums and guitar. The credentials she brings to the project are formidable. Dolly Parton has called her one of the greatest singer-songwriters she has ever heard, bar none. Brandi Carlile produced and collaborated with her and praised her extraordinary voice. Rolling Stone described her as devastatingly direct. At seventeen, she won a nationwide GRAMMY Foundation songwriting contest. She has released three albums, three EPs and numerous singles, remaining sole writer, producer and audio engineer throughout.
The album refuses to stay in one genre for long because its emotional range refuses that constraint. Across eleven tracks it moves through alternative rock, neo-soul, funk, house, pop-rock, retro R&B, reggae-pop and dark pop. 'Make Me the Villain' opens with slow-burning rock and guitar work from Stacey David. 'Inner Banshee', written while David was in London grieving her grandmother's death, channels desperate creative energy into house and neo-soul. 'Ghosted' turns being ignored into a funky James Brown-inflected response. 'Mosaic (All of You)' arrives as the album's most exposed moment, a piano-led ballad with no fiction in its lyrics, building to a devastating vocal climax. 'American God' closes with self-determination: "I am my own church."
Her background as an actress and audiobook narrator, including Bridgerton and more than 150 recorded books, shapes an approach to albums as layered theatrical manuscripts. Villain is her most audacious, joyful and ultimately liberating statement yet.
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