Reviews list for Tower (USA) - Shock to the System (2021)

Much has been made of the powerful vocals that pull no punches throughout Shock to the System, and rightly so too.  Sarabeth Linden has an amazing set of pipes on her and it is her voice that dominates the bands second full-length.  Loud and proud, dripping with Chastain-like references and firmly making her presence felt, Linden soon becomes the focal point of the listening experience.  As such it feels like a solo album as there is not a lot of anything else going on here to really hold my attention beyond the staggering sound of the vocals.

It is not even the rest of the band are bad or perhaps even consciously slip into the background as the album gets going.  It just feels like by the time the halfway point of the album comes around, I have no real need to hear anymore.  Even placing an instrumental as track number three does not seem to give enough of a break to the barrage of heavy metal artillery from Linden's vocal chords.  Remarkable though her voice is I do find it very one dimensional and like it never really gets tested.  What I would love to hear is for the tempo to drop down a bit and then hear how her voice holds up with less intense surroundings that need to be driven by her bellows.  Some element of harmony with her surroundings definitely feels to be missing for me.

As competent a set of musicians as the rest of Tower maybe, their longevity as a group soon wears thin on me.  Even with the retro-hard rock vibe that accompanies their high-energy heavy metal it still becomes tiring for the wrong reason.  It becomes predictable and so more tiresome than tiring, more laborious than invigorating and more repetitive than pure nostalgic.