Customer Reviews

Control & Resistance

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

There may never be another band like Austin's Watchtower. In the wasteland of hairband excess of the 1980s, Watchtower was an oasis of intelligence, talent, and imagination. Nowhere to be found were the idiotic lyrics about sex, cars, and getting drunk. The disingenious 3-chord riffs were MIA. In their place were thought-provoking social commentary and musicianship that was unheard of since the heyday of Yes. Here was a band who combined the heaviness and intensity of thrash metal with the musical sophistication of jazz fusion. Even though they wouldn't exactly dominate the charts, they would be a role model for other amazing bands like Dream Theater, Cynic, Death, Dillinger Escape Plan, and Spiral Architect.

Control and Resistance is Watchtower's second album, after the 1986 debut Energetic Disassembly. Their first vocalist Jason McMaster would leave to join the more commercially accessable Dangerous Toys, and Hades frontman Alan Tecchio would take McMaster's place. Guitarist Billy White would be replaced by ultrashredder Ron Jarzombeck. Jarzombeck's playing sounded like a mad-scientist trying to create his own idea of the perfect guitar player by kidnapping Yngwie Malmsteen, Dave Mustaine, Carl Stalling, and Allan Holdsworth- then trying to fuse them all into one person. Doug Keyser was better suited for funk or fusion - Who needed him when you had bass maestros like Nikki Sixx who just strummed along with the australopithecine guitar chord progressions? Just joking - Keyser laid down a funky groove that made things far more interesting. Rick Colaluca ,in my opinion, was the Neil Peart of the speed metal generation. When so thrash metal drummers were saying, "Look at me, I can play 250 beats per minute.", Colaluca was exploring polyrhythms and odd time signatures that Lars Ulrich will never understand if he lives to be 150. Finally Tecchio sang with the melodicism of a NWOBHM vocalist and the manic energy of a punk singer, with a healthy dose of paranoia.

Lyrically, the songs may seem a little dated because they dealt with 1980s social concerns. "Instruments of Random Murder" is about the aspirin poisonings of the 1980s. "Mayday in Kiev" is about the Chernobyl disaster of 1986, and the unsuccessful and cowardly attempts by the then existing Soviet government to cover the incident up. "The Fall of Reason" is an anti-war song, a theme that was popular during the Reagan years.

Even if it didn't exactly set the world afire, Control and Resistance came out at a time when rock music was (and still is) in desperate need of a brain transplant. It lacked the support of eMpTyV, radio, and the major labels. But what it did have was some pretty good word of mouth. People, the few who heard it, who liked the album REALLY liked it. The good word of mouth is still circulating. When millions look back at the likes of Poison, New Kids on the Block, Hanson, Warrant, and Oasis; they hang their heads in embarrassment and say to themselves, "Oh Dear Lord, I used to listen to that." Then you have the thousands who listen to Watchtower and hold their heads high. Even more proof not to follow the hive mind.

a few years ago, i discovered this band called Spiral Architect. i immediately fell in love with them. the complex arrangements, the brilliant vocals, and above all the mind-blowing basslines stole my heart upon the very first listen. its what i always wanted to hear: a balanced mixture of fusion and progressive metal. i had never heard anyone like these guys, they were totally original...

...until i discovered watchtower a few months ago. for the record, Spiral Architect ripped off Watchtower for every good idea they had. i was shocked upon my first listen of Control & Resistance. it sounded EXACTLY like Sprial Architect! well, technically Spiral Architect sounded exactly like Watchtower, but whatever...

i just couldnt believe it. these guys were doing it 13-14 years before Spiral architect ever thought about it. ok, enough about this...

about the album. the album is spectacular. for guys like me, its an extremely satisfying listen. fusion chops, prog metal leanings, it really doesnt get much better.

watchtower is my all time favorite progressive metal band, and Control & Resistance is my favorite progressive metal album, bar none. absolutely classic.

Rather underappreciated for their talents, Watchtower were a trail-blazing progressive metal act who remain venerated in cult circles. This was their second album, and by all means one of the most complex, technically accomplished pieces of hard rock on the map. Their motto was apparently to cram as many notes into each measure as possible, and the instrumentalists use thrash and speed metal as a starting point for experiments in jazz-fusion bass lines, precision drumming and unbelievable harmony solos from guitarist Ron Jarzombek. I do have to admit that, for most listeners, it's doesn't seem overly emotional; the songs appear to mainly be excuses for instrumental acrobatics. In that sense it may be obvious why these guys never achieved the commercial success of some less-pretentious metal bands. But boy could Watchtower play. If you enjoy the more technical aspects of bands like Rush, Iron Maiden and (old) Metallica, this may be right up your alley.

If you are a fan of super-technical metal (Cynic, Aghora, Spiral Architect), this is where it all started. These guys only have two albums out (the first, "Energetic Disassembly", long out of print- if you're lucky, you can track down a copy of it on the internet, or pick up "Demonstrations in Chaos", available through Amazon; which are demo versions of material from their mid-80's independent label release), but they are among the most mind-numbingly complex pieces of work you've ever heard. Say what you will about this sort of music being too cold, technical, heartless. What it might lack in passion it more than makes up for in finesse.

Basically, take 2 parts old-school Rush and one part frustrated jazz profs on crack. Add a splash of Steve Vai and a pinch of thrash on acid, and you might begin to start getting a picture of what these guys are about. Everyone in this group overplays. Let's get that straight from the get-go. The drums (Rick Colaluca) are completely over-the-top, the bass parts (Doug Keyser) sound like they're taken right out of jazz fusion 101, and the guitars (Ron Jarzombek) are pulled straight from the Allan Holdsworth school of legato phrasing. Top it off with Alan Tecchio's unbelievable vocals, an octave above where most mere mortals can hear, and you've got a collection of start-stop, turn on a dime, time changes, whirl-wind guitar solos, and jazz fusion combo arrangements that's enough to make the profs at GIT sit up and take notice. And, don't get me wrong, this album rocks! It's not just a flurry of scales and technical artistry. This is definitely one of the best Metal albums ever.

I've been a fan of these guys since the mid-eighties and keep this C.D. in rotation almost constantly. If you're into what I call "musician's music", you owe it to yourself to buy this disc. It's unbelievable. Also check out Ron Jarzombek's solo projects (available only on his website: www.spasticink.com).

To put it bluntly. Without Watchtower, there would be no progressive metal as we know it now. My favorite CD from one of my all time favorite bands. I'm glad they've reformed!!

Shame on me!I was listening to Metallica whine thru Justice and this absolutely astounding progressive metal/thrash album is sitting in some store because they didn't get the exposure the Met-boys got!! What a shame it took me 20 years to discover this and the first album!!! Phenomenal!!!!

Utterly unlistenable. This is cold, clinical and embarrassing in its excess. Please understand, I am a huge fan of Rush, Dream Theater, Fates Warning, fusion (Holdsworth, DiMeola, Scofield, Tribal Tech, etc...), Shrapnel Records shred fests... the whole thing.

So why the 1 star review? Watchtower, at least on this record, made something so progressive that it hit an evolutionary dead end. Like a two-headed fish, it not only couldn't survive, but it had no real usefulness except to marvel at and think, "There but for the grace of God (and good taste) go I."

The lyrics are wince-inducing, are so on-the-nose I had to have rhinoplasty after hearing "Control and Resistance". My shredder friends who attended Musicians Institute with me used to sit around listening to this album as an example of what could happen if pure chops were pursued as if they were the only thing that mattered.

Songs? Bah! What use have the mighty instrumental warriors of Watchtower for something as simple and condescending as songs?!? Let mere mortals observe our masturbatory glory in all its larger than life excess and then tell us what use have they for something as quaint as recognizable structure, as backwards as an easily-grasped melody or as populist as a musical interlude that does not feature every note known to Western man played at least a dozen times per bar! All hail us, Watchtower!!!

Sorry, this self-indulgent stuff really desrves to be both admired for its single-minded, serious-to-the-point-of-unintentional-humor adherence to an obscure aesthetic and mocked mercilessly for the amazing self-indulgence and all around dorkiness of its execution.

Listen to this CD at least once if you love anything that can vaguely be described as "progressive" anything, but don't be afraid to laugh at it. And pray that these guys have found girlfriends since then so they never again spend 12 hours a day practicing with a metronome.

Do you mean to tell me people actually listen to this noise?! So what the guys shred their guitars, what does it matter when the songs sound like complete chaotic crap? Ever heard of a little thing called a melody? A song needs one in order to exist. Obviously these guys never picked that up.
Look, I've been listening to heavy metal for over 12 years now, I listen to everything from thrash to death to glam, even a little punk rock. I've never heard anything as UN-LISTENABLE as this. It's just a chaotic mess! Sepultura's first album had 10 times as much melody as this and anyone thats ever heard that album knows what kind of a JOKE that is.
Don't be fooled by people sitting there going: "this is pure technical progressive metal" or "wow, these guys can really play". This album is the worst sounding rock album I've ever bought. Don't get me wrong these guys know how to play their guitars real fast and stuff. But that isn't the same thing as making a song. This is @#$%!!!!