MOONLIGHT TOWERS
Like You Were Never There (Spinster)

By Andy Smith

Austin's Moonlight Towers play a style that splendidly blends the guitar rock of Replacements and Oasis but can't hide its southern upbringing. The band's 2002 self-titled debut caught a lot of Austin scenesters by surprise when it came out and led to both a local following and some national attention. Hoping to make the next step up the career ladder, Moonlight Towers decamped to New Orleans to record the follow-up with producer/engineer Mike Napolitano (Blind Melon, Squirrel Nut Zippers), and the resulting Like You Were Never There is a terrific sounding record that effectively captures the band's gritty, melodic sound.

Musically, Moonlight Towers inhabit the spaces between defined musical genres but with a very classic four-on-the-floor rock foundation. They're twangy but steer clear of being too alt-country. They rock but never lose the focus on the songs. James Stevens has a classic nicotine-stained barroom rock singer's voice with plenty of soul. He also has a good sense of which high notes to try to hit, and what his lyrics may lack in poetic flourish is more than made up for in heartfelt honesty.

The record kicks off with a bang with the rousing "Never the Same Again," which sounds expressly written to get a room of passive listeners to pay attention to a band they may not know anything about. The second song, "I Sleep Alone" is terminally catchy and uses great dynamics and well-placed harmonies to become the real standout track. From here, things mellow out and never really crank back up again. The next two songs, "Born To Die" and "Everybody Knows Why" ratchet up the drinking and weeping quotient and would find good homes in neon beer signed roadhouses. The fifth track, "Sparks Will Fly," is the best of the record's plentiful slow-dancers with a lovely, aching riff, great keyboard accents, and some of Stevens' best singing.

From there, Like You Were Never There settles into a sort of mid-tempo rhythm that showcases the band's knack for great tunes but lacks the heights of the earlier songs. Within certain songs, little nuggets of potential glory reside in individual parts (i.e. the excellent chorus in the otherwise prosaic "End of the Rope"), but no one song seems as fully realized as either "I Sleep Alone" or "Sparks Will Fly." But even though it may end up being a bit too consistent, that may be exactly what some listeners want in.

There is no doubt that Moonlight Towers have both a knack for writing great tunes, and a gifted vocalist in Stevens, but they need to avoid the roots-rock potholes which may work well live but lack fire on this record. Overall, Like You Were Never There is a mature, professional sounding record loaded with well-written, tuneful songs, but the really thrilling moments scattered around the record make me think that we haven't seen the best of this band yet.

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