![](\"http:\/\/musoscribe.com\/images\/bangtower_casting_shadows.jpg\")
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Attention shredding fans! Here’s one you’ll want to know about. Aggressively innovative Brand X<\/strong> bassist Percy Jones<\/strong> has a power trio called Bangtower<\/strong>, and Casting Shadows<\/em> is their (relatively) new full-length. With Neil Citron<\/strong> on guitars and Walter Garces<\/strong> on drums, Casting Shadows <\/em>is a pleasing amalgam of knotty, muscular progressive prowess and solid composition.<\/p>\n Building on accessible melodic ideas, the trio embellishes these with memorable riffs, a wide sonic palette and dazzling displays of chops. Fans of Steve Vai<\/strong> will appreciate the funkified \u201cSex Me Up,\u201d with its almost-swinging underpinning, over which Citron applies all manner of guitar embellishments: 70s style dual-guitar runs, pig-squeal leads, stomping\/crunching power chording, and harmonic interplay with Jones’ bass (itself, often a lead instrument in the Jack Bruce<\/strong> tradition).<\/p>\n Speaking of Jack Bruce, there are some very Cream<\/strong>-y vocal aahhs on \u201cSex Me Up,\u201d and that \u2013 using voices as instruments \u2013 is a nice touch for what is really an instrumental album. When Jones takes the solo – -and he does so frequently \u2013 his bandmates provide sympathetic support; the result is never indulgent in a Spinal Tap<\/strong> \u201cJazz Odyssey\u201d fashion.<\/p>\n There’s no telling just how many guitars (or basses) appear on a given track. On \u201cHair of the Dog,\u201d for example, it’s tough to tell if one of the instruments is Jones doing some high-neck chording on his bass, or if it’s one of several Citron guitar parts. There are keyboards on Casting Shadows<\/em> \u2013 by both Jones and Citron \u2013 but their use is subtle, providing a bed for the string workouts.<\/p>\n Vague hints of Steely Dan<\/strong>‘s work crop up on the disc; perhaps it’s the jazz sensibility applied to rock songs that warrants the comparison. Bangtower is certainly far more hard-hitting, though. And the polyrhythms of \u201cLet ’em Drown\u201d would be out of place on a Steely Dan record. Citron’s snaky, harmonic lead runs will bring a smile to anyone who enjoys Joe Satriani<\/strong>‘s excursions into similar territory.<\/p>\n Casting Shadows<\/em> frequently finds Bangtower putting a spin on arrangements. Even a subtly romantic melody like \u201cBallad of Wealth\u201d has stacked guitar solos (reminiscent in places of Queen<\/strong>‘s Brian May<\/strong>) that give the song a harder edge. And Jones’ throbbing fretless bass adds a jazzy texture. \u201cMan in the Middle\u201d is built on an underwater-sounding bass line and some chilly keyboard pads; Citron leans heavily on his whammy bar during his solos, and the interplay between heavily treated (insect-sounding) instruments would be fascinating just for the tones used, let alone the tasty notes being played.<\/p>\n On \u201c1%ers\u201d Citron coaxes some very electric-sitar-ish tones from his axe, but this is no world music excursion. Perhaps the busiest track on a busy album, the track shifts seamlessly between noisy and quiet, between skittery and smooth. Garces’ clattering drums suggest a strong Bill Bruford<\/strong> influence. The track sums up all of the virtues of Casting Shadows<\/em> in a brief five minutes.<\/p>\n Recommended for fans of jazz-influenced progressive rock with a metallic edge.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Attention shredding fans! Here’s one you’ll want to know about. Aggressively innovative Brand X bassist Percy Jones has a power trio called Bangtower, and Casting Shadows is their (relatively) new […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[65],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-758","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-review","cat-65-id"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/758","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=758"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/758\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":32354,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/758\/revisions\/32354"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=758"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=758"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=758"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}