Album Reviews

Tow’rs

Grey Fidelity

Artist:     Tow'rs

Album:     Grey Fidelity

Label:     Self-Released

Release Date:     04/28/2017

100

Arizona-based band Tow’rs, made up of husband and wife duo Kyle & Gretta Miller accompanied by their talented friends, is not worried about being right or knowing what comes next. Through the magic of musical storytelling, Tow’rs is on a mission to “explore the questions that haunt us, the pain that marks us, and the hope that redefines everything for us.” On their latest self-released album, Grey Fidelity, releasing tomorrow, the band crafts gorgeous, minimalist poetry made to shake the heart.

Grey Fidelity opens with a haunting, string-based intro to “Girl In Calico,” slowly building into ambient rhythms rolling like waves. Kyle’s tender voice sings a nostalgic chorus, “Out of all the things that I regret / Honey, you are not one of them.” The record’s third track, “Alright,” features bold percussion crowding woozy vocals, creating a hypnotic harmony. “Consolations” sees the band experimenting with a slick indie-psych groove, bubbling with varying multi-instrumental arrangements, each of which are colorful and hip against smooth vocals. Next, Gretta takes the lead on “Going,” her sugary, versatile voice confidently singing “Wherever I’m going, I’m going with you” on a bed of percussive pulses and eerie rhythmic swells. The album’s final track, “I Can’t Help Myself,” truly acts like a goodbye. There’s a quiet resignation to it, Gretta’s voice spelling out the album’s end, mimicking the heavy honesty that the entire record so generously shared. Towards the middle of the song, full rhythms join distant harmonies for the repeated hook, but eventually it ends abruptly, an unobtrusive finish to a mesmerizing album that allows for the stunned silence one must take in after listening to Grey Fidelity.

The minds behind Tow’rs do not make just music, they make poetry. They write stories. They share lives. Grey Fidelity drips with care, warmth, and sensitivity. This is an album that breaks hearts then puts them back together again, gentle movements of aching rhythms spilling into soft harmonies, creating a gorgeous unity unrivaled by most indie bands. If Tow’rs is a force, Grey Fidelity is the whispered encouragement needed to propel forward into a future of unknown, but endless, possibilities. Music doesn’t make itself like this anymore.

–Savannah Davanzo

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