It’s 2004 and I’ve flown from Dublin to Birmingham to finally see Rush, my favorite band. In the hotel room a friend hands me his headphones and asks me to listen to something. That something was Alter Bridge’s debut album One Day Remains, I pulled the headphones off before a minute passed and said “who the fuck is the singer”. It was of course Myles Kennedy. Bought it, bought Blackbird day one, bought AB 3 day one and caught the tour. Thought that one was their best.
Then Fortress came out and I liked it but found it similar sounding to the first 3, maybe it was my ears, maybe it was the continued presence of Michael Baskette in the mix and surprisingly I found myself getting more from the Tremonti albums because they had a more old school metal sound. Mark too had a great voice. They were also shorter with each Alter Bridge album having a couple songs too many.
Now we have Walk The Sky and this one I prefer to the last couple for two reasons: it’s a little darker like AB3 and even though it has 14 songs it’s a little shorter and to my ears doesn’t overstay its welcome. The first song One Life is more a short intro piece (inspired by the death of Myles dog) and only two others pass the five minute mark, I don’t feel like turning this one off before the end. Super heavy on Native Son, dark on Indoctrination, personal on Godspeed written about a friend of the band who died from cancer and ends strong with my favorite songs on the back end. Great album.
Richie.
