Passion. Emotion. Melody. Aggression. These are the hallmarks of Alter Bridge, one of the most routinely acclaimed and adored hard rock bands on the planet. Formed in 2004 in Orlando, Florida, the band comprising guitarist Mark Tremonti, bassist Brian Marshall, drummer Scott Phillips and vocal powerhouse and guitarist Myles Kennedy have steadily but purposefully risen to the upper echelons of the rock world thanks to a mixture of supreme songwriting talent and musicianship and an unerring collective belief in the power of music. The band’s first three albums – One Day Remains, Blackbird and 2011’s ABIII – have helped Alter Bridge to accrue a huge international fan base, all of whom will be thrilled by the prospect of hearing the band’s fourth album, Fortress, for the first time. A bold, ambitious and exhilaratingly powerful collection of freshly-minted anthems that refines and redefines its creators’ trademark sound while simultaneously raising the bar in terms of speaker-melting, state-of-the-art sonic values.
“Fortress is a musical snapshot of a specific period of time,” explains Myles Kennedy. “We didn’t allow ourselves the luxury of over-thinking and overanalyzing. That is what makes this record so special to me. When I listen to these songs everything sounds fresh and unencumbered by the sound of beating arrangements into the ground. There is spontaneity. We try to push ourselves musically with each record, but we opted to veer further from some of the standard approaches we’d used for writing and arranging songs in the past. That said, we still tried to maintain the Alter Bridge sound.”
Like A Storm
On their debut album THE END OF THE BEGINNING, Like A Storm stir up a torrent of infectious hard rock. The Vancouver-based quartet’s first full-length is an avalanche of captivating choruses and hard-hitting grooves, as exemplified by the first radio single Chemical Infatuation. Brothers Chris, Matt and Kent Brooks along with Thomas Karanasos conjure a dynamic rock sound that’s simultaneously ethereal and edgy.
“THE END OF THE BEGINNING is really the start of the next stage. We spent two years making the record, and we really lost ourselves in the recording process. We seriously evolved as artists and as writers. For us, it’s a snapshot of two years of our lives and all that we went through. Musically and lyrically, it’s our story.” Says Matt.
On the other end of the spectrum, Like A Storm penned a heartfelt and epic eulogy for their grandmother entitled “Galaxy (Rest In Peace).” Matt goes on, “She was a huge part of our lives, and she passed away while we were making the record. Because we were in L.A., we couldn’t be there for the funeral. So that song was our tribute, and we wrote it for the funeral. We had two days to write the track, and the idea came right away. It was probably the easiest song we’ve ever written. It meant so much to all of us. We wanted to do something special and immortalize her.” They did by creating one of their most touching and vibrant songs. Chris adds, “That experience brought us even closer together.”
Like A Storm has grown into an extremely tight unit with Thomas Karanasos rounding out the lineup behind the kit. Thomas adds a pummeling presence that heightens the drama inherent in Like A Storm’s sound. It began with the live show, and the Like A Storm concert experience is still crucial. Chris elaborates, “The live show is a huge part of what Like A Storm is. We love being on stage and blowing people away. It’s an energetic explosive rock show.”
In the end, for Like A Storm, artistic integrity is paramount to their path. Matt offers, “The albums sound is epic, surreal and ominous. That’s the kind of art we want to make. I want the music to transport people away from their every day lives and into this world we’ve created. We feel lucky we got to make a really ambitious record for our first album.”
Chris concludes, “We didn’t have any rules making this record. We pushed ourselves, and it was such a creative, chaotic experience. Out of that came a lot of honesty.”