"For The Taken” is the debut album from Arizona’s Mercy Fall. After touring clubs since 2003, Mercy Fall’s debut CD see’s the light of day, showing a wonderful display of their musical capabilities with influences ranging from Collective Soul, Black Label Society, and Stone Temple Pilots. The CD illustrates the band’s perfect use of light and shade in music. The use of modern and classic hard rock really makes for a worthwhile listen.

The album starts off with a rock anthem, “Insurmountable,” which is a great sing-a-long, and destined to be a hit. From there, the rock continues with “Hangman,” which is another great song with a style along the lines of many bands from the 90’s and 2000’s. On the third track, “Worth,” we start to see a nice use of light and shade in the album, which is, used quite a lot. The album uses a great format of having rock songs and then softer songs, which builds up to another rock song and so on. This gives a great variety of styles to the album and doesn’t bore the listener. After “Worth” comes, the ballad of the album, which sounds like a certain, hit entitled “Not Broken Down.”

The next tracks are quite similar to those before it until the eighth track, “Hush.” This song is a sure stand out from the other tracks because of its slow progressive influence. The next two songs are nothing special, although they sound like they could be big hits on MTV. The last track on the album entitled, “No More Silence” is an 11-minute epic with influence from Coheed and Cambria and some Mars Volta. I say this because of the growling backing vocals and insane instruments that make this song a great masterpiece. Through all its insanity, at the five-minute mark, the song changes completely into an intimate acoustic track. This reaches the end of the album with a beautiful, yet haunting finale.

This album is a breath of fresh air as newer bands are concerned because of its variety in style. This CD contains many modern influences, while holding its cornerstone of hard rock. Mercy Fall’s debut, “For The Taken” is a must have for anyone that appreciates new blood in the hard rock genre.