6 out 6 for the lovely American quartet that share with us another enjoyable album even though there’s no comparison with their past’s monuments.
We were already prepared what to expect when the first single “Wouldn’t You Rather” came out (a dynamic metal oriented track) and later on by “Pay No Mind” (more into prog rock that made me really happy). Now, that I have the full album on my stereo I can be less of a fan and more objective. Here we have a lot of good songs but –let’s be honest- after listening the album a few times it seems to be missing a hit single, something that will grab you directly, or a long epic track (actually they kept the duration of every track in normal standards).
The album doesn’t slack though, production and band’s performance are top notch and everything seems easy for them, something that comes natural for a band that has world class musicians like the virtuoso Mark Tremonti on guitar (he offers some great riffs again, although he seems a bit more restrained this time) and the lovely Myles Kennedy on vocals. You won’t find many heavy moments this time (“Native Son” set apart along with the first single that kind of “fooled” us) but I don’t think that this will bother anyone and OK, fans of “Fortress” will be a bit disappointed but Alter Bridge have said many times that they don’t want to release the same album again.
If I had to choose a favorite track that would be “Clear Horizon” that the band seems to build in a nice smooth way, but I must admit there is a nice groove through most of the songs which means that the arenas all over the world will be excited in any case and definitely we will listen the album many times (even though it may not reach our top list at the end of December, does it really matters?).
