Watchtower are one of the most important bands progressive metal ever produced — a wildly technical, fearsomely complex group from Austin, Texas who, while barely out of their teens, fused progressive rock and thrash metal into something genuinely new. Never commercially successful and active for only a short time, they nonetheless helped invent a whole genre, and their two 1980s albums remain landmarks revered by musicians and prog-metal fans the world over.

The short version

Formed in 1982 in Austin, Texas, Watchtower are pioneers of technical progressive metal — injecting the complexity of progressive rock into the speed and aggression of thrash. Across just two albums, “Energetic Disassembly” (1985) and the landmark “Control and Resistance” (1989), they created some of the most dazzlingly technical metal ever recorded. Though they never found mainstream success, their influence on progressive and technical metal is immense.

Austin: inventing technical metal

Watchtower came together in Austin, Texas in 1982, founded by guitarist Billy White and drummer Rick Colaluca with bassist Doug Keyser, soon joined by singer Jason McMaster. Steeped in the new wave of British heavy metal but equally in love with progressive rock acts like Rush, U.K. and King Crimson, the young band set about doing something almost no one had tried: taking the intricacy and ambition of prog and welding it to the fury of thrash metal. The results, written and played while the members were still teenagers, would help change heavy music forever.

Technical progressive metal

Watchtower’s music is a marvel of complexity and precision: wickedly fast, packed with shifting time signatures, intricate riffs and dazzling instrumental interplay, yet always recognisably metal. Jason McMaster’s soaring, high-pitched vocals — once memorably described as a “pissed off Geddy Lee” — rode atop a rhythm section of jaw-dropping agility and a guitar style of relentless invention. It was demanding, uncompromising music that some found impenetrable and others found revelatory; either way, it pointed the path that progressive and technical metal would follow for decades. Their debut has been called the single recording most responsible for the birth of progressive metal.

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Two albums, two line-ups

Watchtower’s two studio albums capture two distinct incarnations of the band. “Energetic Disassembly” (1985), with Jason McMaster on vocals and Billy White on guitar, was a self-released underground landmark, already pushing metal into uncharted technical territory. Soon after, McMaster left to form the glam-metal band Dangerous Toys and White departed too; in came virtuoso guitarist Ron Jarzombek and former Hades vocalist Alan Tecchio. This line-up recorded “Control and Resistance” (1989), the band’s masterpiece — even more complex and progressive, and widely regarded as one of the great progressive metal albums. Health and line-up problems then put the band on ice, leaving just these two records as their studio legacy.

Album by album

Two landmark albums of pioneering technical progressive metal. Tap any title for its guide.

The players

Through all its changes, Watchtower was anchored by its founding rhythm section: bassist Doug Keyser and drummer Rick Colaluca, the two constants across the band’s classic era. The debut featured guitarist and chief songwriter Billy White and vocalist Jason McMaster, who went on to front Dangerous Toys; for “Control and Resistance” they were replaced by guitarist Ron Jarzombek — later of the instrumental project Spastic Ink — and vocalist Alan Tecchio. The members have reunited on and off over the years, including for the 2016 EP “Concepts of Math: Book One” and a series of festival appearances, keeping their remarkable legacy alive.

Where to start

Begin with “Control and Resistance” (1989), Watchtower’s masterpiece and one of the defining albums of progressive metal — a dazzling, relentlessly technical tour de force. Then go back to the debut “Energetic Disassembly” (1985), the raw, pioneering record that helped start it all. Just two albums, but together they form one of the most influential bodies of work in the genre.

Why they still matter

Watchtower matter as true originators — one of the handful of bands who invented technical and progressive metal, and arguably the most important of them all. That they did it so young, and with so little reward at the time, only makes their achievement more remarkable. Cited as an inspiration by Dream Theater, Death and countless others, their two albums remain essential listening for anyone who wants to understand where progressive metal came from. For sheer technical daring, few bands have ever matched them.

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