My first encounter with Towersound was back in 2005 when I reviewed their debut album, 'Towersound. At that time the band consisted of 3 French Brothers, but more recently they dropped back to the original duo of Jon & Lonn. In fact, I have just visited the band's website and it looks like in June 2010 Lonn has decided to leave the band and they have called it quits. The website will stay online and you will still be able to buy their albums from the website for a while, I guess until their hosting contract runs out.
Around the time of the debut the band described themselves as melodic heavy metal/power metal. In 2007 they released an album of rock ballads called "From Tears To Smiles" and the band now describe their style as "rock ballad and symphonic metal". However, the band's core sound is still the same, it is just that average pace of the tracks has slowed a little. The majority of the album is mid-tempo melodic metal tracks which seem to be hit a peak around the middle of the album with tracks like "Its Up To Me" and "Breathe Life Into Me". Unusually for me the stand out tracks were actually the couple of heavier tracks called "The Demon's Playground" and "No Mercy", where there is a kind of Manowar vibe in the background.
The symphonic element comes in on the 3 instrumental tracks on the album. The album bravely opens with a gentle baroque sounding track, which I think makes a change from the all guns blazing attack that most bands launch in order to get you attention at the start of an album. The titles of the other instrumentals sort of do the description for me - "Strings Over Drive" and "Quartet No 11 in B Minor". On top of the strings sits some neo-classical guitar work. I guess Mr Malmsteen features somewhere in their record collections.
Rating: 3 stars
