The third album of the New York City based five-piece TOWER is rather exhausting in its very own way! First of all, compared to its predecessors, it contains far more Heavy Metal than ever before. We remember the selftitled debut “Tower”, the “Tomorrow And Yesterday” EP and also their second record “Shock To The System” were strongly characterized by bluesy 70s Hard Rock which rarely made excursions into Pproto Heavy Metal realms. A bit of IRON MAIDEN and early W.A.S.P. was of course on their influence menu, some NWoBHM stuff from time to time, but mostly their sound was more like a celebration of big riffs and big gestures that were common in Hard Rock of the late 70s and early 80s. Much more important than the question of whether “Let There Be Dark” was inspired more by JUDAS PRIEST and less by IRON MAIDEN, and whether there’s still a bit of old W.A.S.P. in it or not, is this insane intensity with which this band plays. Whether it’s the title track ‘Let There Be Dark’ or songs like ‘Holy Water’ or ‘Iron Clad’ you get the feeling that the musicians are unstoppable as soon as they let loose. They seem to drive each other to the peak with their performance and if especially ‘And I Cry’ would not have been faded out towards the end, at least the both guitarists James Danzo and Zak Penley still would be playing today. I bet! The extremely voluminous and classical voice of singer Sarabeth Linden does the rest to make the music seem extravagant, she leads the band through the songs and still keeps the music together when the guitarists are already off their leash. It’s exhausting to follow the madness without getting stuck somewhere in details. That can be a scream that combines with a solo to form a single moment, the emphasis of a word, it can be a moment in which you think that this acoustic guitar part could have been heard on a MOTÖRHEAD album somewhen fifteen years ago. The versatility of the music together with the changeability of the voice makes this record a wild ride. Over and over again… Love it! www.facebook.com/towernyc, www.facebook.com/cruzdelsurmusic