Album Notes

"When WatchTower unleashed Energetic Disassembly, the onslaught caught listeners offguard.

Twenty years later, the metal world still can't fathom the talent, aggression and innovation that made the Austin quartet prog-metal legends.

Prog metal? The term had yet to arise when Energetic Disassembly seduced unsuspecting listeners. Multiple time signatures, frenetic drum
work and banshee screams assaulted eardrums and announced a music revolution.

Newly re-released, the collection still sounds years ahead of its time. In fact, time hasn't caught up with the band that predated Dream Theater and Spiral Architect, among others (Nothing against the latter act, but A Sceptic's Universe - as good as it is - recalls Kingdom Come's brazen take on Led Zeppelin as applied to the Texas 'tower.)

Back to WatchTower.

"Violent Change" suffers no fools. From the get-go, Billy White grafts busy guitar runs against Rick Colaluca and Doug Keyser's bionic rhythm section. The duo juggles tricky changes as Jason McMaster lends his inimitable howl.

The man who drew Geddy Lee comparisons warns of societal meltdowns, nuclear war and social fears. Lyrically prescient and musically unequalled, WatchTower burned the template for countless acts that would follow.

Separating the band from its imitators is balls, cajones, those funny things dangling below McMaster's bullet belt. Yes, kids. While many prog metallers boast talent, they lack aggression. They don't seethe, gnash their teeth or rail against anything. Not so WatchTower.

Like angry punk rockers, the band tears rock a new one, ripping superman riffs and lyrical themes like a Doberman tearing flesh from bone.

One part aggression, two parts intellect, and WatchTower found its groove. Make that four independent grooves played simultaneously by musicians seemingly high on speed engineered on a Martian meth lab.

Take "Asylum." After a tentative intro, tempos speed and the boys plow into one of those impossibly tight riffs that paint smiles on the most cynical, crossed-arm skeptic at the lip of the stage.

When McMaster and White harmonize, it's only icing on the cake. Extending the insanity is "Tyrants In Distress," possessing one of the best intros this side of "Am I Evil?" One can picture stage smoke swirling around Colaluca's drum kit.

Listen as Keyser's bass runs echo the drummer's quick fills and off-tempo cymbal work. It's the sound of Godzilla decimating Tokyo if the beast had ADD and Tourette's syndrome - and some of that Martian speed.

With Energetic Disassembly, WatchTower breathed live into a new genre. But recognition eluded the quartet before and after White's defection and McMaster's brief success with Dangerous Toys.

Yet the band resurfaced with Control and Resistance, the 1989 release announcing Ron Jarzombek as White's heir apparent. What seemed an unstoppable juggernaut died when Jarzombek suffered injuries that sidelined his guitar playing for years.

Meanwhile, the WatchTower legend grew and imitators multiplied. A surprise gig at 2000's Bang Your Head Festival renewed interest among fans, with Demonstrations In Chaos treating fans to unreleased
material in 2002.

With Mathematics - extreme metal's Chinese Democracy? - awaiting completion, 'tower fiends await fresh material. In the
meantime, they can grab Energetic Disassembly, hit "play" and run around their bedroom like it's still 1985."
-By A. Lee Graham
Posted 11/29/04 to ElectricBasement.com