Tower to the People

Hightower’s 2009 sophomore release finds San Francisco’s premier ambassadors of skate rock performing with a tighter musical chemistry and an inviting sense of humor. The album opens with a short acoustic intro that would well accompany washing down a turkey leg with some John Courage ale at the local renaissance faire. The more ferocious “Wizardhawk” boasts the kind of sword-wielding adventure-metal synonymous with bands like Saviours and the Sword; Shane Mednich’s drums gallop like warhorses under Jake Japanese’s guitar work that dexterously draws from bastardized Metallica leads of yore before dissolving into distorted sludgy thrash. “A Minute In the Hour of Man” successfully experiments with stuttering rhythms before unfolding into the kind of feral instrumental that would sit perfectly on a mix alongside the likes of Bison b.c., S.T.R.E.E.T.S. and 3 Inches Of Blood. Fantasy rock aside, Hightower are still party-metal skate-rocking deities as evidenced by “Nomadic Skating Metal Gypsies,” a high energy behemoth of a song inspired by the band’s penchant for hitting up concrete skate parks and empty pools across America while on tour.