Moonlight Towers
Heartbeat Overdrive
Reviewed by: Jane Roser
By definition, moonlight towers are lighting structures that were designed to illuminate certain sections of a city at night. They were popular in the late nineteenth century and currently, the last existing towers in the world are located in Austin, Texas. A decade ago, Moonlight Towers debuted their eponymous album to rave reviews and have kept on truckin’ ever since.
Heartbeat Overdrive, released today on Chicken Ranch Records, continues the band’s streak of putting out records that try t0 capture the raw passion and energy of a live show. The album’s first single, “Out Of The Gray” is a fun, rocking number that reminded me a bit of Huey Lewis and the News, and of which vocalist James Stevens says “it was written to chronicle that shitty feeling of watching someone you love go away forever, yet doing your best to pick it all up.”
“Windowpane” was written while Stevens was touring in London and is a melancholy tune about wines sing a loved one deal with loss: “they say that the darkest hour comes before the dawn, but it’s like an eternity until the morning comes.” While these tracks stood out as the strongest of the nine, the rest started blending together and I couldn’t really differentiate one from another after awhile. I was a bit torn writing this review, the songs I enjoyed were, to illustrate the the band’s moniker, radiant and illuminating, while the others were simply lost in the shadows.
Rating: Listenable
