Commence Epic Rocking
Now with 25% less Creed.
The swan song to the classic rock bands of the 1970s, Alter Bridge comprises three of four former members of Creed. Mark Tremonti spent some time practicing guitar after Creed split up and once he was sure he could melt faces
, he called up his former bandmates, found Myles Kennedy, and formed one of the rockinest rock bands this side of the pond.
AB dropped One Day Remains in 2004. The album was largely recognized as a definite improvement over Creed and very well received. AB spent the next few years trying to make the Creed comparisons end. They finally did after they released their second album, Blackbird, in 2007.
While they're popular in America, they're huge in Europe and actually produced a live DVD in Amsterdam note and another in London (Wembley Arena). By every account, the band is composed of some of the nicest guys you could ever hope to meet.
Discography:
- One Day Remains (2004)
- Blackbird (2007)
- AB III (2010)
- Fortress (2013)
- The Last Hero (2016)
- Walk The Sky (2019)
- Pawns & Kings (2022)
Alter Bridge provides examples of:
- The Alcoholic: "Buried Alive"
- "Drank so much last night, I think that I drowned / But now my cup is empty..."note
- Alternative Metal: with a bit of Post-Grunge. Though since Kennedy tends to sound like 1/8 Yarling, 1/8 R&B, 1/8 blues and 5/8 Chris Cornell-belting, his singing could be called more true Grunge than Post-Grunge. That or a new style entirely...
- Ascended Extra: Myles was originally only brought in for Vocals on One Day Remains... On the next record, he and Mark have battling guitar-solos during Blackbird...
- Badass Boast: Any given fight song, like "Metalingus" and "White Knuckles".
- The Bad Guy Wins: "Silver Tongue" from Pawns and Kings
- The Band Minus the Face: Creed, minus Scott Stapp. Although this made Myles Kennedy the new face.
- Big Rock Ending: Not to mention the guitar duel before "Rise Today" when the song is performed live.
- Call-and-Response Song: The song "Words Darker Than Their Wings" has sections sung by Tremonti, passed off to Kennedy. It works out to a conversation between the two.
- Contemplate Our Navels: All of AB III, but especially "Words Darker Than Their Wings", which was born from a philosophical discussion between Kennedy and Tremonti weighing their respective beliefs (or rather, Kennedy losing faith in his).
- Cover Version: Very common and often spontaneous. In Tremonti's words:"Before Myles joined Alter Bridge, he sang in many, many cover bands to put himself through college, and he knows every song known to man. So I want you guys to scream out the names to songs you want to hear, and I guarantee this guy here knows it".
- Darker and Edgier:
- Compared to Creed, quite a bit.
- AB III, compared to their previous albums.
- Fortress is by far their heaviest album to date, featuring very few ballads and an absolute abundance of heavy riffs that wouldn't sound out of place on a metalcore album.
- While not quite to Fortress's heaviness, Pawns and Kings contains what may be their darkest imagery so far in their discography, though not without counter.
- A Day in the Limelight:
- Kennedy alone plays the solo in "Isolation", though Tremonti plays all the mini-solos scattered throughout the song.
- Likewise, Kennedy does the vocals on most of "Words Darker Than Their Wings", but the Pre-Chorus parts are sung by Tremonti. The roles are completely reversed on a single track on "Fortress", where Mark Tremonti handles the Vocals and Myles Kennedy handles the Lead Guitar!
- Downer Ending: "Wonderful Life," maybe.
- Early-Installment Weirdness: One Day Remains is much heavier on the Post-Grunge and oftentimes considered the only album they obviously sound like Creed on. A couple of songs, like the title track and "Metalingus" had hints of what they'd become. Those types of songs tend to dominate albums released after it.
- Epic Rocking: "Blackbird" along with "Fortress" are just shy of 8 minutes. "Fable of the Silent Son" is their longest song at 8:22.
- Genre Mashup: Myles' voice is essentially hard rock wailing ala Robert Plant, grunge breathiness with a hint of soul, and his playing combines that of virtuosic Jazz with Blues. Mark's playing is basically proggy Alternative Speed Metal with just a bit of blues, Spanish guitar and southern twang making surprise appearances. The rhythm section can have some progressive tendencies as well.
- Grief Song:
- "In Loving Memory", written about the death of Tremonti's mother.
- Also Wonderful Life, which simultaneously celebrates and mourns the life of someone who's dying.
- Green Aesop: "Bleed It Dry", "The Writing On the Wall".
- Lighter and Softer: The Last Hero compared to Fortress, not being as heavy and often having more melodic songs. The band itself described it as Blackbird meets Fortress prior to its release.
- Longest Song Goes Last: They have done this twice as of 2019, with Fortress closing with the 7:36 Title Track and Walk the Sky closing with the 5:46 "Dying Light".
- Long-Runner Line-up: Type 1, with all members having been constant since June 2004.
- Lyrical Dissonance:
- "Watch Over You". Beautiful ballad that's generally performed acoustically... and the lyrics boil down to "I can't deal with your problems anymore; I'm outta here."
- "One By One" has an refrain styled like that of a triumphant power ballad, but the words are about soldiers being needlessly sent to die in battle.
- "I Know It Hurts" is a typical Tremonti-style Heavy song, but the lyrics are surprisingly comforting, despite the melody sounding quite dark.
- New Sound Album:
- Blackbird saw them sporting a more general Alternative Metal and Hard Rock sound compared to One Day Remains.
- AB III was overall darker and heavier with a subtle Progressive Metal tinge.
- Fortress is an almost pure metal record, with very few ballads (the softer songs on this one are more just Hard Rock songs) and a very strong Thrash Metal edge. It also bumped up the Progressive Metal influence considerably.
- The Last Hero combines the more technical songwriting of Fortress with Blackbird's overall songwriting style, and is generally not as heavy as Fortress.
- Walk the Sky incorporates more synthesizers and keyboards than usual, but is still heavy.
- They change things up yet again with Pawns and Kings, venturing back towards Fortress in terms of heaviness, but with a more pronounced prog rock/metal flavor.
- Non-Appearing Title: "Metalingus", "White Knuckles" and "Words Darker Than Their Wings".
- Progressive Instrumentation: "Metalingus" starts with bass, drum and guitar doing an intro then the voice joins. In live performances, this intro starts with the drums, then the bass joins, then the guitars, and once the song exploded, the voice joins.
- Self-Backing Vocalist: Myles' voice is overdubbed quite a bit (including much echo).
- Step Up to the Mic: Tremonti sometimes does this live, and did this on the tracks "Waters Rising" on Fortress, "Forever Falling" on Walk the Sky and "Stay" on Pawns & Kings.
- Title Track: On every album as of 2022 except AB III.
- War Is Hell: "One by One."
