Watchtower at Progfreak.com

In many ways, the mother of technical extreme metal, "Energetic Disassembly" and WatchTower constitute the precursor of acts like Death, Cynic, Pestilence and Atheist. And if you like technical and progressive metal, then this collection of complex, mindboggling thrash metal tunes should be right up your alley. While the guitar sound is crap, the stereo effects on the drums are sick (in a good way), and the bass is nicely prominent like in Iron Maiden, Cynic and Atheist.

Technical thrash madness! You'll get strangled listening to this album. No room for breathing between these completely mad time-signatures. Watchtower really know how to play their instruments indeed. I was browsing through the site and found this great band, then got this album. Man, I did not regret. The complex and thrashy songs really grabbed me and I fell in love with it at once. Alan Teccio's vocals may be an acquired taste, but he does a very good job on the album nevertheless, following the riffs very well too. Ron Jarzombek, who formed Spastic Ink after the Watchtower split, really shows what he's good for, backed up with Dough Keyser's complex bass playing. Rick Colaluca's drumming is excellent, though a bit sloppy sometimes, but his switching between electronic and acoustic drums is really cool to listen too.

This album isn't very original, but it's an important and influential point in the Progressive Metal genre. This album is incredible progressive and never really boring, and the hyperactive songs are all great. Especially "The Fall of Reason", which features a beautiful and relaxing, yet complex middle section, and the title cut with it's very memorable main riff. Complex, tricky, progressive and influential, that's how I would describe this one. It's not perfect, but it's not very far from it either.