ABIII - Alter Bridge

Posted by Anonymous at Friday, October 22, 2010 | 0 confessed

Release Date: October 11, 2010
Label: Roadrunner Records

Alter Bridge releases their first concept album and the third in their discography. It's pretty hard to imagine how they will be able to outdo their 2007 masterpiece, Blackbird, but surprisingly, AB III manages to get on par and maybe even better than their sophomore studio effort.


Tracklist:

1. Slip To The Void
2. Isolation
3. Ghost of Days Gone By
4. All Hope Is Gone
5. Still Remains
6. Make It Right
7. Wonderful Life
8. I Know It Hurts
9. Show Me A Sign
10. Fallout
11. Breathe Again
12. Coeur d'Alene
13. Life Must Go On
14. Words Darker Than Their Wings

Began as a band that culminated from the instrumental remains of Creed; Mark Tremonti, Brian Marshall and Scott Phillips recruited Myles Kennedy and Alter Bridge grew to a massive (albeit underrated) alternative rock/metal band that surpasses any bands that their current members have been a part of.

In 2007, Blackbird was released and personally, it is one of my best albums in 2007. Sadly, Alter Bridge doesn't get much coverage from music media and the release of AB III was pretty much unknown to the general rock masses. However, anyone worth their alternative rock/metal salt, would know about the AB III's release and that Alter Bridge is back with bone crushing riffs and boner inducing ballads.

Considering that AB III is a concept album, it begins its story with a pretty awkward approach in "Slip Into The Void". Programmed bassline and Myles's vocals crooning over it for about a third of the track before the usual signature crunchy guitar riffs, velvety bassline and crashing drums fall in at the 1:30 mark that would plaster a smile on every head banging Alter Bridge fan.

Just when I was pretty confident about Filter's The Trouble With Angels  bagging the best rock album for 2010 (check review here), AB III makes it a difficult decision to make with head banging tracks "Isolation", "Still Remains", "Coeur D'Alene" and "I Know It Hurts" and tones down the aggression in tracks "Wonderful Life", "All Hope Is Gone" and "Life Must Go On".

Mark Tremonti also seems to have discovered a newfound balance for his amazing guitar playing skills to match the music that accompanies it. Comparing to Blackbird, his solos don't really seem to be as long and elaborate, but when it comes forth, you'd better be ready to have your face melted.

Brian Marshall, Mark Tremonti, Myles Kennedy, Scott Phillips

Alter Bridge is a mature rock band that is not all about aggresssion nor all about sappiness too. In AB III, they've managed to balance out their dynamics very acutely by having more structure to musical parts and more post-production work on the music, but in all of its glory, the intensity that was present in Blackbird is missing in this album which can be pretty disappointing to those who are expecting a Blackbird II, me included.

AB III is not a bad album at all, in fact, it is pretty amazing and has me putting it on repeat since release date (similar to The Trouble With Angels) but comparing it to Blackbird makes it less of a masterpiece and 1 short of being perfectly sinful.

6 out of 7 sins