Verdict (& Rating): Surpising melodic heavy/power metal (80%)
More info: www.towersound.net
Towersound contains French brothers Jean-Christophe (vocal & songwriting), Laurent (guitar) and Flo (drummer). Their name is inspired by the old tower attached to their house. The band wrote and recorded this debut album in 2004.
The band describe themselves as a melodic power/heavy metal band. In fact, their style is a little hard to describe. The core of their sound is melodic heavy metal, but there is a lot more than just that - elements of progressive metal (the band started life playing progressive rock), hard rock, neo-classical metal and even baroque.
"Prelude to the Tale of" is a medieval style intro to the metal of "Towersound" which comes across as mixture of Accept and Manowar, albeit with more of a sense of melody. Tracks like "Devils of the Night" and "Hells on the Speedway" highlight just how well this band manage to execute this blend of heavy and power metal and still maintain a melodic content. The vocals thankfully aren't the high pitched squeals normally accompanying this type of music. The are in a lower register and somehow convey a sense of passion about the music.
The band's progressive influence shows through in the 12 min "Final March, Last War". This is a grandiose track with feels like it should be part of the soundtrack to a film about medieval battles. "Enchanted Alloy" is an instrumental that helps highlight that one of reasons the album works is the excellent playing (all the more surprising because only the drummer has any formal music training with the two other brothers being self-taught).
I have to say that my expectations for this album were fairly low. When it comes to this type heavy/power metal I find much of it uninspiring and repetitive. However, Towersound have created a sound and style of their own and breathed fresh life into the genre.
