Website: Towers of London
The Inside Pulse:
England has a history of punk that never stopped being written. Through different times and different flavors, the aesthetic still lives with bands like Towers of London. With their debut Blood Sweat & Towers, this quintet carries on traditions as well as combining today’s newer styles and trends into the old standard middle-fingers-to-the-establishment cacophany. The result is anti-pop while using all of pop’s best properties against it.
Positives: There’s a giggle to be had when “Air Guitar” grabs a play on words from Vanilla Ice, and the goofy non-ballad “Fuck It Up” also snags a smile between punk thrashing. Humor isn’t their only forte, with songs like “King” introduced with a full orchestra; add to the mix “On a Noose” and what you have is a collection of very tightly-written pop-punk.
Negatives: Punk is everywhere, and Towers of London are one of many who have crossed over to mainstream sounds. Blurring the lines, even with all of their rowdy antics, waters down the effect. Most of the bands who do it better have had chart success for the past few years now, and being lost in the shuffle almost seems like destiny for Blood Sweat & Towers without any one identifying mark that sets them apart from the pack.
Cross-breed: The Clash takes fashion cues from Ziggy Stardust and secretly wishes they could be Blur.
Reason To Buy: If you like happy, bouncy punk, you have nothing to lose on this one. If that’s not your normal scene but you’re open minded to giving it a shot, Blood Sweat & Towers isn’t a bad place to start and it’s a whole lot of fun to boot.
