Tower – Let There Be Dark Review

[Cover artwork by Jared Fleming]

“One of the great things about New York is that if you ever need dead baby eels, you can get them here. Also, there is opera.” – Dave Barry

Full disclosure: I have had a love / hate relationship with New York for the better part of my adult life. The hate is mostly a dramatic sham rooted in varying levels of ludicrous professional sports friction, and the love is founded on… well, the fact that New York is comprised of virtually everything: All the great, good, bad and awful any extraordinarily large city could ever hope to offer, available at all hours from virtually any and all angles. In essence, New York City is a living organism, and with that comes all the benefits and impediments afforded to all living organisms.

Musically speaking, though, NY was pretty much love at first listen: Blue Öyster Cult, Twisted Sister, Manowar, Riot, Nuclear Assault and Prong for the launch, quickly shuffling into an obsession with the NYHC scene, and then eventually settling into an extremely longterm relationship with wallopers such as Suffocation, Immolation, Cannibal Corpse and Winter.

Somewhere along the way, though, it seemed as if the New York metal scene kinda got lost up its own ass. Sign of the times, really, and obviously not exclusive to NY, but as the spotlight circa 2015 began to shift toward more fanciful forms of black metal that emphasized style over substance, a place with the numbers like New York appeared glutted with contenders.

As is so often the case, however, it was largely a me problem. I didn’t dig deep enough, I’m a rigid sorehead, and I might’ve even allowed my extremely practical distaste for, um, Yankee ballbag Brett fucking Gardner to bleed into other facets of my life, which is obviously something a person with concrete between their ears might do.

GLORY BE, I EVENTUALLY SEEN THE RESPLENDENT LIGHT! Oh, my wounded heart.

If memory serves, a pivotal turning point was achieved somewhere around 2017, thanks to a chance discovery of A Funeral for the World, the stellar debut from Brooklyn heavy-hitters Sanhedrin. That record was a total brain-slap, and once it fully settled into my marrow over a healthy stack of months, it almost felt as if it opened some previously hidden doorway that quickly ushered in a handful of other like-minded NY bands working a similar form of heavy sorcery: Hard rockers Tanith, who share a member with the wildly great NWOBHM act Satan, and of course Tower, whose 2019 EP Tomorrow & Yesterday inspired me to finally wonder, “What in the shit is going on in NY to conjure these new crucial bands fronted by women of such notable strength?”

Reminder: There is no such genre as “female-fronted metal,” just as there is no such genre as… oh, I don’t know… male-drummed metal. But given our current timeline and the fact that this nation seems hellbent on turning back the clock 40, 50 or 100 years, it suddenly feels relevant to thunder endorsement for any and all spices that augment a full range in metal, so, yes, consider this a loud order of enthusiasm for Sarabeth Linden and her highly potent form of powerhouse vocals. She’s like… Ann Wilson in a Diamond Head shirt, pointing directly at you in the crowd as she barrels through tunes with the force of a possessed witch from a Hammer Film Productions scene.

Now is a good time to revisit some thoughts on Tower’s previous endeavor, 2021’s Shock to the System, because things seem to have shifted a bit in the years that have followed. From the write-up I did back then:

“The band Tower, from the city of New York, in the state of New York, in the world of New York, is largely concerned with guitars—big, loud guitars that remind us of a time when Guitar Gods were revered to a point where even celestial radio (what’s that??) devoted hundreds of thousands of Two-For-Tuesdays to the likes of Sabbath, Cheap Trick, AC/DC, UFO, Scorps, RUSH, Thin Lizzy, etc. ad infinitum. Such armored veneration toward all things six-stringed, flying V’d, multi-necked and SG’d became even more emphatic with the arrival of the quickly developing NWOBHM scene of the early and mid 80s, and it is precisely there, at the blaring crossroads of those two kingdoms, where Tower and Shock to the System wield their galvanic might.”

All that still rings true in 2025, but as evidenced by a cut like “Under the Chapel,” Tower has shifted further into the shadows with the properly titled Let There Be Dark. There’s a strong spectral feel draped over Linden’s voice here—downright ghostly at times and floating on reverb. Pairing that with the band’s decision to veer into a heavier, darker mode of songwriting? The result is a more severe / serious overall tone when compared to the EAT THE RIFFS, BABY attitude behind Shock to the System.

What has NOT changed since the last record is Tower’s penchant for mixing things up in terms of pace and mood. So, while there’s a clear shadow draped over the whole of these 40 minutes, underneath that shroud there’s enough variety to ensure the full journey is loaded with all sorts of winning footholds. The title track, for example, is the fastest and meanest thing the band has put to wax (love those gang-shouted background vocals), followed immediately by another scorcher in “Holy Water” that sort of fools the listener into thinking it might be a doomy walloper by launching with a requisite bell and monk chants before eventually speeding off.

Slower numbers get a fair amount of the spotlight, too—ballads, in a sense, but not at all maudlin or sugar-coated, opting instead to lay down a notably introspective mood that feels as if the cuts were ripped from some forgotten 70s’ coming of age film where a misunderstood HS rocker smokes stolen cigs atop a playground dome climber at 2am.

WE KNOW YOU DIDN’T ACTUALLY CHEAT ON THAT EXAM, HIGHTOWER. Here’s a blistering lead to send you off into the night. Oh, and there are blistering leads on this flippin’ album, let me tell you.

“And I Cry” and “Don’t You Say” are the slow-rolling heroes here, and Sarabeth in particular steals the show on these dark rumblers by belting it out like a conqueror. “Book of the Hidden” also features a really cool mellow stretch after its halfway point, making it all too easy to envision steam fleeing the depths beneath dampened NY streets late at night, but it’s a song that’s otherwise fully devoted to rocking, thanks to an opening riff that lands on the choppers like some sort of collision between classic Crüe and Loudness.

As gratifying as everything that’s been mentioned so far is, though, it’s the late hitters in “Iron Clad” and “The Hammer” that really push the needle into “okay, maybe it’s time to move this album into essential” territory. The former opens with a notably satisfying hard rockin’ strut that recalls the band’s fondness for classic Thin Lizzy, but just after the midpoint it jumps into a sprint that blisters like early Angel Witch. That lead around 2:45 hurtles like wild voltage as the bass happily thunders alongside (note: plucky bass play is extremely present on this record), and just when you think the song’s about to settle back into another verse, a second lead launches with even more titanic fury. GLORIOUS power, that, and something that doubles down on the record’s designs to melt faces with an exhilarating form of electric fury.

Not to be outdone, album closer “The Hammer” lays down yet another stomper that showcases the power of new drummer Keith Mikus, but it also does a fine job of transitioning into a beautifully dark, smooth and catchy reprieve around the 3-minute mark before eventually shifting again into a snappier martial step where Linden and a melodic little guitar lick LIFT things for a notably dramatic end. It’s a consummate closer, crammed with shifting forms of potent power, and it’s something I suspect will inspire listeners to wonder if perhaps the wisest next move is to simply… hit play again.

Hey, 2025! Hats off to you for apparently deciding to fucking hit it with great trad metal releases: Century, Vultures Vengeance, Sacred and Morax, plus upcoming wallopers (confirmed wallopers, as it happens) on the horizon from Black Sword Thunder Attack, Power Surge and a couple others that are probably best to still keep under wraps. For its part, New York has also come out swinging, with Sanhedrin dropping arguably their best release to date TO-DAY (review here), and Tower prepping Let There Be Dark for one week from today. All that’s missing is an announcement from Tanith detailing their own release for 2025, plus an event that perhaps showcases all three bands for a show that would certainly tempt travel plans. Suffice to say, here’s my free advice for Dave Barry: Skip the dead baby eels (assuming The Dead Baby Eels aren’t some obscure punk-metal band I have yet to hear) in favor of some toothsome NY heavy metal, and that absolutely includes getting to know Let There Be Dark on a very personal level.