The Tower And The Fool - How Long (Run For Cover) Album Review
It’s worth just chucking this album on and seeing which song hits you hardest on that day – do so and you’ll be surprised where The Tower and The Fool can take you.
rating: 3.5
Website: www.thetowerandthefool.bandcamp.com Facebook: www.facebook.com/pages/The-Tower-and-The-Fool/153473908020785 Release date: 24th April, 2012 It sounds cliché to say in our world of hyperbolic sales slogans, but when you listen to The Tower and The Fools new release, How Long, you go to another place. Not in a pretentious spiritual sense though the right music can do something of a similar but much less obnoxious description but in a more tangible way. How Longs folk and country tinged acoustic alternative tunes may take some time to settle on you but they can very easily become the perfect driving buddies. And if they really nestle in deep, in the space of a few lines singers Alex Correia and Chris Rosenquest can also take you to their pasts most vulnerable corners and possibly your own. If you close your eyes when listening to the rocking drive of Dive Bar youll open them behind the wheel of a beat up pickup truck going hell for leather across a sun-soaked plain in Middle America. Its an attention-grabbing opener, with gorgeous cascades of melodies, which perfectly replicates the charge of fast-approaching potential in waving to someone or something in your rear-view mirror. That six men from Providence,Rhode Islandcan effortlessly invoke a scene set thousands of miles from their door still isnt as impressive as how easily a listener from a different continent can maintain it. In the same way that a cross-country drive wont keep your adrenaline peaked How Long doesnt try to keep this tempo for long. When The Tower and The Fool ease up on songs like the title track it feels like the musical equivalent of pulling over on said journey, admiring the scenery and leisurely strumming a guitar with your feet on the dashboard. It perfectly matches Brokens country stylings and its outright name-check in the line Ill be Johnny and if you like, baby, you be June. Its easy to see that theres a pervasive theme in much of the album. Its in lyrics like I got two suitcases begging to be filled... pack them up just to leave them here and see what Highway 90 brings and time to let go, time to walk along the road. Indeed, an underlying focus of the album is escapism. Forging a connection with How Long appears dependent on circumstance as the literal but abstract lyrics of Valentines Day are so specific that very few people could relate to them directly. However, soon enough the disarming earnestness in Rosenquests voice on Breach and the irresistible dynamics such as the vocal harmonies in My Heart is Dead in NYC intensify the feelings they accompany and so the specifics become immaterial. The entire arrangement envelopes the listener and become a sonic buffer from the rest of the world. http://youtu.be/3xfUjGRWjRU The songs dont all march to one drum, though. Just as Correias sweeping vocal is the Yin to Rosenquests Yang of off-beat intonation, (and while were on the subject, it would have been nice to see more interplay between their two styles which complement each other brilliantly), their lyrical content has a flip-side too. While the escapist joy of Fade Away is one thing, the motivation for such desires resides in the anthem of the broken-hearted, My Heart is Dead in NYC and the other tales of lost love. Who Does She Think She Is? and its morbid line of I still cant push the dinners very far, but I could push you out of my car (ouch!) suddenly solidifies the image of a person in that pickups rear-view and turns that wave goodbye into a middle-finger of disownment. Not only is How Long perfect accompaniment for a ride, its a journey itself. The Tower and The Fool take their all too willing listeners through the many stages of a relationships end. In ten songs they travel through despair (How Long) and self-destruction (NYC) into a new beginning (Fade Away) and then from regression, doubt and reflection (Valentines Day) finally to renewed resolve (Scoliosis). Interestingly enough, theyve left the listener to draw this conclusion themselves. While these moods arent hard to find in the songs, they arent displayed in such an obvious order. For example the empowering chorus of Scoliosis rests second in the running order and in the typical lead single slot. Its easy to see why from a business sense as its one of the strongest choruses, but it would also be the pick me up needed after much of the bitterness and melancholy. http://youtu.be/XZeUjWHcymU Its a testament to the strength of the writing, then, that the chronological order isnt necessary for the songs to fully capture you. Once they implant their seed in your mind its impossible to shake the beautiful feelings of freedom or fraternity that blossoms thereafter. Its worth just chucking this album on and seeing which song hits you hardest on that day do so and youll be surprised where The Tower and The Fool can take you.