Band of the Month/Year – Alter Bridge

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Alter Bridge / AB Brussels / 2011 by ~TimTronckoeSource: http://browse.deviantart.com/photography/journalism/concerts/?order=9&q=alter+bridge#/d4sinhp — Alter Bridge / AB Brussels / 2011 by ~TimTronckoe
Source: http://browse.deviantart.com/photography/journalism/concerts/?order=9&q=alter+bridge#/d4sinhp

And so the countdown starts towards 2013 and the anticipation for Alter Bridge’s follow-up to 2010’s AB III begins. I for one absolutely cannot wait for it to be released. It might be strange to give the title Band of the Year to a band that hasn’t toured for the past year or so, but thats the beauty of this band. They don’t have to release new material or tour for more than a year and they still have the ability to touch people’s lives in some way. Mark, Scott and Brian has been busy touring with Scott Stapp as Creed this year, Myles has had a fantastic year touring with Slash and the Conspirators and Mark Tremonti has been occupied with his solo effort All I Was. All of the band members has had a successful year, so now its time to get back down to business guys!! Alter Bridge has personally been my favourite discovery this year, although I might be jumping on the bandwagon a little later on in their career I feel like I have been a fan for years.

Myles Kennedy and Alter Bridge has a few dedicated fan pages on Facebook that has been very active in publishing content surrounding Myles’s current endeavours and Alter Bridge’s official Twitter page has certainly not been inactive or dormant this past year. Its great when fans still feel they can connect with the band in some way even though they are busy doing different projects.

Here are a few fan pages you can check out if you’re a fan:

http://www.facebook.com/#!/pages/The-Myles-Kennedy-Fan-Page/193843620723265?fref=ts

http://www.facebook.com/#!/TheKennedyEffect?fref=ts

http://www.facebook.com/#!/alterbridge?fref=ts (Official)

https://twitter.com/alterbridge (Official)

http://www.facebook.com/#!/pages/Alter-Bridge-III/235680409963?fref=ts

http://www.facebook.com/#!/AlterBridgeSA?fref=ts

Alter Bridge is an American rock band that was formed in 2004 in Orlando, Florida. The group was named by Mark Tremonti after an actual bridge located in Grosse Pointe, Michigan, near his former home on Alter Road. Alter Bridge’s first album was met with mixed reviews and achieved gold status with One Day Remains which was released by Wind-Up Records in August 2004. After the band’s first tour they left Wind-Up Records in 2006 and signed with Universal Republic Records releasing their second album Blackbird in October 2007 which was met with positive reviews by critics. The band toured for the next two years and reconvened in 2010 to work on their third studio album. AB III was released in October 2010 through Roadrunner Records and the album was a critical success. In January 2011 Alter Bridge’s first live album and concert film was released “Live from Amsterdam” after two years of delays. Their second concert film “Live at Wembley” was released on the 26th of March 2012.

The band has had relatively low mainstream success (which isn’t always a bad thing, as we all know), but their music has been critically successful which proves that Alter Bridge consists of true artists and musicians in every sense of the word. In 2009 Ultimate Guitar Archive name Alter Bridge the 36th greatest band of the decade.

Afer Creed became inactive in 2003 following a controversial tour, that same year Mark started writing new material with plans to form a new band with Brian Marshall and Scott Phillips, being fans of Myles Kennedy‘s former band The Mayfield Four they invited Myles to join their band. The music of One Day Remains as well as most of the lyrics on the album was written by Mark Tremonti, although Myles also co-wrote the lyrics for about half the songs. A few songs from One Day Remains established an affiliation with WWE, most notably “Metalingus” which Edge adopted as his entrance theme in 2004 and used it as such until his retirement in 2011. Its ironic how I always loved that song and I always wondered who the artist was that performed it.

Alter Bridge experienced a bump in the road when their relationship with Wind-Up Records started to deteriorate. Alter Bridge still experienced some difficulty after parting ways with Wind-Up records which consisted of criticism for disbanding Creed, pressure to reform Creed and false reports of a Creed reunion. I can imagine this time in their career as being quite tough on the band and I think it was extremely unfair to blame Alter Bridge for Creed’s problems, but I suppose it was inevitable. Creed and Alter Bridge are two seperate bands and I think fans as well as the media should respect that.

Blackbird was released in 2007 and it has been dubbed by fans of the band as their best and heaviest album to date. In October 2010 “Ties That Bind” was listed by Total Guitar as the 41st Greatest Guitar Song of the Decade. Ties That Bind is definitely one of my favourite songs, its very energetic and the lyrics are powerful. In March 2011 the dual guitar solo performed by Myles Kennedy and Mark Tremonti on the song “Blackbird” was voted the Greatest Guitar Solo Of All Time by MusicRadar‘s readers, which is an AMAZING achievement considering the amount of talent featured in the top 20 that readers could vote for. Read more about Myles and Mark’s reaction to the news here: http://www.musicradar.com/guitarist/greatest-guitar-solo-poll-winners-alter-bridge-speak-403308

A single disc version of “Live from Amsterdam” was sold exclusively at venues during Creed’s reunion tour in 2009 and on Amazon.com. The dvd sold thousands and thousands of copies in comparison to the projected hundreds that Amazon expected to sell. The dvd reached No.1 on Amazon’s “Bestsellers in Music Videos & Concerts” and remained there for weeks.

On September 6th 2010 Roadrunner Records debuted Alter Bridge’s first single “Isolation” on their website, the song became the band’s most successful song reaching number 1 on active rock radio and on the Hot Mainstream Rock Tracks chart, a first for Alter Bridge. AB III was met with overwhelming critical acclaim from professional reviewers upon its release. MusicRadar called it one of the guitar albums of the year and Artistdirect gave AB III a perfect score and called it a masterpiece.

Alter Bridge’s music is a spiritual experience and it touches your soul. Alter Bridge’s music is heavy yet melodic, because Myles has such a soaring voice it creates a great contrast with the heavy guitars and bass. Alter Bridge has a unique formula which you don’t come across often. As a listener Alter Bridge’s music soothes and renews your faith in music. I’m so happy I followed my instinct when I bought AB III earlier this year, because its very unusual for me to purchase an album without listening to a few samples on the album. I take the task of purchasing music very seriously and I don’t make the decision lightly.

I can’t wait to hear what Alter Bridge has in store for fans in the new year and I hope to hear a lot more from them in the future.

Rock Regards,

Lauren K