These dudes were recommended to me via the contact form. It’s been a little bit (surprising how long, actually; over a month) since I wrote about a band from Portland, but Towers, who formed in Spring 2010 draw the attention with pulsing ’90s-style noisy churn and throaty shouts on the track “The Fields,” and let the fuzz do both the walking and the talking on the more stonerly “Lost Missile,” so I’m not about to argue with the suggestion. Pretty heavy stuff.

There’s something angry in the vocals, which even on “Lose Missile,” adds an element of intensity. They’re obviously still a pretty new band, but guitarist Max Rees, bassist/vocalist Rick Duncan and drummer Darryl Swan do solid work blending their riff-based and noise elements. Early Helmet is a factor, and by extension Totimoshi — I’d draw a direct comparison between Duncan‘s singing on “Western World Death Blow” and the latter — and things get a little weird on the aptly-titled “Machine,” where they take the noise rock and toss it over a synth dance beat. Strange times we live in.

Anyway, the tunes are cool, and Towers are doing local shows for anyone in Oregon or the Portland area who might want to catch them. There’s more info on their Thee Facebooks page, and they’ve also got the songs on ReverbNation, which is where I heard them. Here they are for your listening convenience:

Tags: Oregon, Portland, Towers, Unsigned bands

This entry was posted on Thursday, October 6th, 2011 at 10:07 pm and is filed under On the Radar. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.