austinjhnsn wrote:Agree that Losing Patience isn't that great at all.
This album rules and TLH drools.
all seriousness i will post a review soon, it has been great reading everyones thoughts! I love that we all seem to have different favorites and someones biggest dislike might be someone elses favorite.
TLH is a rock album this is a pop album. I prefer rock and TLH rocks. Like i have said many times nothing even comes close to TSOF or Cradle on this album. Im sure many Beeber fans might like this album though so if AB were trying to lure teen girls to their music this is the album to do it
Well, I'll bite.
TLH has some good songs, like Cradle, the album is terribly inconsistent in the quality of music. Most of the record is sub-par on all counts. The album has like 4 or 5 good songs. I think this record has more of an even consistency in quality and is a step up in general. Although Cradle is probably better than most songs on this record, but that's just one song from TLH, see, most of TLH is the worst of the band.
Jaredr24 wrote:
Overall I think it’s a good album and gave me a nostalgic feeling of listening to my favorite band again but still think it’s missing so many things that made this band special to me.
Yeah, they surely don't sound like the same band they did for albums 1-3. They've been consciously changing their sound for the last three records and it's the right thing to do imo. Nobody wants to hear the same thing for so many years. They want to keep it fresh for everyone and keep people interested. Sometimes a band strays too far from their sound for the worse (full circle) and the gamble backfires.
TheEndisHere wrote:None of those bands surprise me. Adelita's Way has toured with AB and probably gained a few fans from them (I found out about AW from the fact that they toured with AB). AB toured with Disturbed. Steel Panther seems like a band that would appreciate the work of Tremonti and Myles on guitar. Now if a big band like Metallica gave a shout out that would be huge
They probably would and, actually, Steel Panther is good friends with Myles. He came to their show in Spokane and sang Highway to Hell with them a few years ago. Also, Steel Panther has tour with AB and Slash in Australia during the Soundwave festivals and both Steel Panther and AB played before Aerosmith at Download in 2014 and 2017 (which I don't know why the promoters did the same top three bands on the main stage two times in four years.)
The point still stands that it's nice to see these bands, that AB knows well, to give that shoutout for the new album when they didn't honestly need to.
I forget who said that One Life should segue into Wouldn't You Rather, but they were absolutely RIGHT. I extended One Life a bit and put them together and it sounds great.
austinjhnsn wrote:Agree that Losing Patience isn't that great at all.
This album rules and TLH drools.
all seriousness i will post a review soon, it has been great reading everyones thoughts! I love that we all seem to have different favorites and someones biggest dislike might be someone elses favorite.
TLH is a rock album this is a pop album. I prefer rock and TLH rocks. Like i have said many times nothing even comes close to TSOF or Cradle on this album. Im sure many Beeber fans might like this album though so if AB were trying to lure teen girls to their music this is the album to do it
Lol what the fuck is this? A pop album. Yeah, Forever Falling, Walking On the Sky, Indoctrination, Native Son, etc. etc. all sound extremely poppy. There’s criticism and then there’s pulling outlandish and false statements out of your ass.
austinjhnsn wrote:Agree that Losing Patience isn't that great at all.
This album rules and TLH drools.
all seriousness i will post a review soon, it has been great reading everyones thoughts! I love that we all seem to have different favorites and someones biggest dislike might be someone elses favorite.
TLH is a rock album this is a pop album. I prefer rock and TLH rocks. Like i have said many times nothing even comes close to TSOF or Cradle on this album. Im sure many Beeber fans might like this album though so if AB were trying to lure teen girls to their music this is the album to do it
Well, I'll bite.
TLH has some good songs, like Cradle, the album is terribly inconsistent in the quality of music. Most of the record is sub-par on all counts. The album has like 4 or 5 good songs. I think this record has more of an even consistency in quality and is a step up in general. Although Cradle is probably better than most songs on this record, but that's just one song from TLH, see, most of TLH is the worst of the band.
After listening to the new album on repeat for the past few days, I wouldn't exactly call it consistent either. But that's all subjective I'm well aware. I personally can't really get into native son or indoctrination even though I love heavy AB. To me they just don't have much melody. The bitter end to me is similar to songs like make it right which aren't bad, but not my favorite type of AB song by any means.
The songs I keep coming back to on the new album are Godspeed, Forever Falling, Clear Horizon, Walking the Sky, and Dying Light. So 5 tracks pretty much that I really dig. Some of the other ones are okay, but I sometimes have to force myself to listen to them. On TLH I really loved cradle, TsoF, Island, and TLH. But I mean really loved. The rest of that album is meh to me as well. But those 4 tracks I'd rank higher overall than the five I love from the new album. Although TLH does have You will be remembered, which I think is the worst track AB has ever made.
As for consistency plus highs I'd put really only Fortress and Blackbird on the same platform. ODR and ABII are relatively consistent without the highs of either of those album.
So i'd likely rank:
Fortress
Blackbird
TLH
ODR
WTS
ABIII
I feel like Myles missed a great lyrical opportunity in the first line of The Bitter End. Instead of "I've walked every road and turned every corner", he should have said "turned every stone."
A couple pages back, there were some jokes about Brian and Elvis and whoever doing vocals... so I was just doing some looking around for other projects Elvis has worked on, and discovered that apparently, he was credited with vocals on Taking Dawn's cover of The Chain (sauce: https://www.discogs.com/artist/1810302- ... s-Baskette). I'm guessing it's just extra harmonies, as it sounds like there's about 12 people singing this:
scarecrow wrote:I forget who said that One Life should segue into Wouldn't You Rather, but they were absolutely RIGHT. I extended One Life a bit and put them together and it sounds great.
Been anticipating this album for a while. When the singles first dropped I was a bit shaky about what to expect. I think Wouldn't You Rather is a killer single, Take The Crown and In the Deep are very good songs but had to give them multiple listens for them to grow on me. Pay no mind didn't really do much for me except I thought lyrics were great.
Diving deeper into the rest of the album, it's definitely one of their most melodic attempts, which I think is what makes it a very solid album. Nothing compared to Fortress (being my favorite) or the epics in TLH yet a very decent attempt at trying something different. Godspeed, Walking on The Sky, Clear Horizon, Forever Falling, Dying Light are the best tracks imo. Rest of the songs are decent enough but not the Alter Bridge caliber we are used to I think. Felt like Tear Us Apart is another My Champion type of song stylistically.
All in all:
Positives:
1) Best melodies so far imo
2) Some very good heavy guitar riffage is there
3) Mark sings a song
Negatives:
1) Lack of guitar solos is a big one for me, especially Myles maybe having only one small solo in Dying Light - prolly knocks alot of points off
2) Lack of longer "epic journey" tracks
Personal Rating: 7/10 compared to Fortress being a 9.5/10 for me
It didn't click right away, but I've reaaaaaally grown to love Walking on the Sky. I know it's inspired by walking on a wire between buildings, but what do you guys take away as the metaphor for the song? The lyrics "you're losing balance where you can't let go" in the bridge really hit me. If I can be transparent for a second, it made my think if my 9 month old. I'm a dad now, and it made me think of the fact that I need to budget better and stop drinking so much, before I "fall" from a place I can't recover from. It's deep as hell, and really inspiring to me.
ToNsOFuN88 wrote:It didn't click right away, but I've reaaaaaally grown to love Walking on the Sky. I know it's inspired by walking on a wire between buildings, but what do you guys take away as the metaphor for the song? The lyrics "you're losing balance where you can't let go" in the bridge really hit me. If I can be transparent for a second, it made my think if my 9 month old. I'm a dad now, and it made me think of the fact that I need to budget better and stop drinking so much, before I "fall" from a place I can't recover from. It's deep as hell, and really inspiring to me.
My takeaway is that it is about living your life on your own terms as opposed to what society says you should do. I think there's a line in the bridge about falling from the wire and if you fall, at least you lived your own way.
Idk. Just my two cents.
TheEndisHere wrote:None of those bands surprise me. Adelita's Way has toured with AB and probably gained a few fans from them (I found out about AW from the fact that they toured with AB). AB toured with Disturbed. Steel Panther seems like a band that would appreciate the work of Tremonti and Myles on guitar. Now if a big band like Metallica gave a shout out that would be huge
They probably would and, actually, Steel Panther is good friends with Myles. He came to their show in Spokane and sang Highway to Hell with them a few years ago. Also, Steel Panther has tour with AB and Slash in Australia during the Soundwave festivals and both Steel Panther and AB played before Aerosmith at Download in 2014 and 2017 (which I don't know why the promoters did the same top three bands on the main stage two times in four years.)
The point still stands that it's nice to see these bands, that AB knows well, to give that shoutout for the new album when they didn't honestly need to.
It's very nice of them. I'm kinda surprised that Halestorm hasn't followed the trend. I know that they are close with AB.
ToNsOFuN88 wrote:It didn't click right away, but I've reaaaaaally grown to love Walking on the Sky. I know it's inspired by walking on a wire between buildings, but what do you guys take away as the metaphor for the song? The lyrics "you're losing balance where you can't let go" in the bridge really hit me. If I can be transparent for a second, it made my think if my 9 month old. I'm a dad now, and it made me think of the fact that I need to budget better and stop drinking so much, before I "fall" from a place I can't recover from. It's deep as hell, and really inspiring to me.
I think the song is extended metaphor for the album in general, which is you have one life, don't be afraid to live it.
After a few more listens, most of the songs are growing a little bit more, others not so much, quite the opposite. Take the Crown, In the Deep, The Bitter End and Tear us apart are just meh. So I disagree when some people say it's a consistent album. A shorter album with 11, 12 songs would be better, I think.
Although the album has good songs, I still think they are not a standout songs, but I have a sense they could be, if they had worked more on them. It seems that something is missing (I never understood why they have to release an album every 3 years).
But I'm happy they always try to do something different.
I'm not feeling the album yet, maybe it's because I'm listening to other very different stuff, more acoustic-driven and my taste in music is changing.
The messy production doesn't help. TLH took some time to dig, because of that too. Even today is still growing, but at least has some epic stuff.
Even ABIII doesn't have the best songs and I don't really like it, very much, at first but today I love listening to it, I don't even skip any song anymore.
I always like a challenge and I believe it will grow over time just like the other albums. At least I hope it does.
Alter Bridge is now sponsoring racing teams. Seems like they invest more money into promotion this time. There is also this thing with the Alter Bridge cabs driving through London. https://www.facebook.com/11741547494650 ... =3&theater
I have listened to this album somewhat nonstop since Thursday night (I say "pretty much" because Jimmy Eat World's Surviving came out the exact time, which has taken up at least 30% of the listening share), and while I'm not giving a review of any sort right now, I do want to say one little nitpick that I never thought worked and still don't.
Alter Bridge is the only band that I've seen on multiple occasions write a song whose riff matches that of the verse-singing parts. I'm talking All Hope Is Gone, Waters Rising, Cradle to the Grave... and now Dying Light. I think some people here like it, but I find it to be rather putrid. Doesn't make it sound good. Maybe I'd see Dying Light as a much better song if they did something else with the riff while Myles is singing those lower register verse parts, but right now that part bothers me a lot.
I said this before in the favorite songs poll thread as well, but Myles needs to harmonize with himself less in songs. I think there is only one song on this album where he doesn't do it for the majority of its chorus (Pay No Mind), and it sounds great. He is one of the greatest melodic singers and the word, and he is hampering himself a lot with this. Even if Tremonti harmonizes with him, it has to be few and far between IMO (I think Mark is in the background a lot too, but with at least another Myles too). Use sparingly, that's all I'm saying. Some songs it really works, others we should just leave him be... like Godspeed, for example. On ODR, in comparison, always seems to have him exclusively sing by himself or have Mark join in for a brief part (like One Day Remains or Burn It Down).
Speaking of ODR vs. WTS, it's quite interesting to see when the first chorus kicks in for one album versus the other. On ODR, the first chorus normally appears right after about the 25% mark of that song; on WTS, sometimes it appears as late as 40% into the song. Sure, this might speak on longer openings, but it also speaks possibly on shorter closings/not as many breaks after the first chorus as we would have liked to see. This album could have definitely filled out with a couple of more measures in each song here, heh.
scarecrow wrote:I forget who said that One Life should segue into Wouldn't You Rather, but they were absolutely RIGHT. I extended One Life a bit and put them together and it sounds great.
This is how they do it live right? I feel like that's what Elvis wanted to do with the song but didn't want a situation similar with Come To Life where at the end it has the fade in to transition into Brand New Start, but if you were listening to the song and BNS wasn't next (like in shuffle or something) it would have a seemingly weird and not very fitting sound fading in, and instead he wanted the track to be its own contained song. (if that makes sense )
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