Album Review: URBAN HEAT’s The Tower

Let’s get right to it, then. Local lords of darkwave Urban Heat don’t wait to bring the fire, so neither will I.

The Tower starts like an earthquake. The heavy crunch and warble of the synth bass shakes the foundations, creating cracks in the facade to reveal something rapturously melodic underneath. “Take It to Your Grave” makes good on the promise of last year’s “Blissful Neighbor.” It’s electro-pop with the edge of real-time guitar shredding. The intricacies in production that give electronica its nuance and punch humbled by the presence of a guitar whose sole function is to rock. With The Tower’s bombastic opening, Urban Heat builds from the teasing tiptoes of their first several singles and acclaimed EP Wellness to fully indulge in the endless possibilities of a 44-minute album.

The LP ends the way it begins: on a kaleidoscope of rough textures and bright synth that swirls like an EF-5. “Take It to Your Grave” introduces the band’s intentions, while “Addicted to the Sounds” explodes into a declaration of self. The closer acts as a microcosm of what Urban Heat represents as a band. They’re bombastic, at the height of their musicianship, yet there’s exceptional tenderness in Jonathan Horstmann’s delivery, Paxel Foley’s bone-throbbing bass underbelly, and Kevin Naquin’s cinematic instrumentation. Not bad for a 5-year-old band brought together to realize Horstmann’s vision.

Urban Heat is a memory trap. There are shades of the laser-slick electronica that ran rampant throughout my childhood in arcades, anime, and late-night covert perusals of MTV. This is deceptively industrial pop that lures you in with its almost ethereal composition, compliments of the synth work and Horstmann’s stadial voice. So densely packed are his emotions, the notes seem to catch in his throat, being at once full-bodied and restrained enough to keep the sound from going off the rails.

I won’t deny a little shoulder shimmying ensued by the time track five, “Blindfolds and Magic Bullets,” came knocking for some attention. This is what’s really interesting about the album and the band that birthed it: Both build on momentum. While The Tower’s composition might render this observation a “Well, duh” statement, to be fair, the album takes a minute to really get one to commit. The music plays well with sonic nostalgia; however, a general side effect of much of the New Wave era is that most bands that emerged sounded very similar to each other. Thus, an entire album that shows reverence to the genre can get a little draining on the ear, constantly inundating the cochlea with strobe-effect synths that produce a not completely pleasant ringing in the ears. However, once “Blindfolds and Magic Bullets” crawls its way through the swamp of overindulgence, the entire atmosphere of the album shifts from an overstuffed Flock of Seagulls into a pleasantly surprising combination of Tears for Fears, Alphaville, and early-Aughts Seotaiji.

That being said, a product of letting one’s self loose to play in the digital field of an LP is that self-editing isn’t first priority. Growth and exploration at all costs, but sometimes the cost is a sacrifice in sonic consistency. It’s a whisker-thin line between the right amount of weird and wonderful and overstimulation. Singles “Sanitizer” and “Right Time of Night” are heavy-handed, relying on tricks and effects to sell their boldness. The fearlessness is commendable – playing just to play, to find how many buttons you can push before the song spills clumsily over a cliff. Unfortunately, it ends up being more a clash of sounds that appear to serve the sole purpose of “Because we felt like it.”

When done right and with narrative clarity, we get tracks like “Savor Not the Thrill” and “Say the Words.” The latter refocuses the sound on a central theme: the melancholy of craving to be everything your significant other needs, but begging for permission to fall into that freedom. With this track, Urban Heat – yes, the entire band – succumbs to the cascade of sensation to procure a track that lifts the listener up from the doldrums into an aural divinity. This is no exaggeration. The composition of this piece is closer to a hymnal plucked from the 17th century: grandiose strings (synthetic or otherwise) with harmonic dissonance so thick it sounds like the notes are sharing skin.

Urban Heat’s earlier drops tended to lean heavier on the synth than the cat-scratch wail of guitars that gave punk its reputation among the outcasts and little monsters of society. As their first official full-length, The Tower’s sound is more focused, emphasizing the attention to Horstmann’s heavy vocals, the stellar harmony work, bold musicianship, and impassioned lyricism. Though it can become a slog to swim through the 100-foot wave of sound, it’s a playful yet evocative push and pull between the prettiness of pop and the rugged power trip of pure punk.

Urban Heat will perform at 3TEN Austin City Limits Live with Gvllow and Delores Galore on Saturday, Aug. 17.

Urban Heat

The Tower (Artoffact Records)

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This article appears in August 16 • 2024.