Topic: Alter Bridge
Hunted through the 'search' function and only found their name a couple of times. Apparently, in the 'March Madness' thread with a listing of favourite bands they only garnered 1 vote, and in the 'Any Metal Fans' thread their music was determined as being 'not metal'.
I never really even listened to Creed, but the background story to the formation of AB had me interested at the time of their debut album 'one Day Remains' in 2004. I heard some of it then but dismissed it as 'Metal' and not my thing, although I felt the vocals by Myles kennedy set it apart from over fairly derivative Metal band outputs.
I didn't bother with any more AB albums but did follow their story, mainly because of Kennedy's emergence as a guitarist in his own right and his collaborations with Slash, not to mention being asked to provide vocals for Jimmy Page/JP Jones as they were assessing a post LZ reunion show band project.
Fast forward to today and this months Classic Rock mag provided a 12 track 'sampler' CD of AB songs, both studio and live 'The Story so far...' for oiks like me that didn't dig the sound enough or see their potential to be something more than a crunching riff factory.
This sampler, is amazing. I love the songs. Yes, there are riffs, over widdly bits here and there and some frantic Metal style drumming, occasionally. But there is also great melody, superb anthemic songs and choruses, superb playing and absolutely stellar singing and phrasing by the aforementioned Mr. K.
As to the question "If they are not Metal, then, what are they" I would say that they must be 'heavy rock', as opposed to 'hard rock' in the Thin Lizzy sense of the phrase. But like Lizzy, the presence of such wonderful melodic runs in songs like 'Backbird', 'Open your eyes' and so on means they avoid the trap of being a one-dimensional metal attack band.
Without meaning to be insulting to either band I feel AB are the band Nickelback could (should?) have been, but for the road not taken. NB definately have the edge on dollar$ but in the long run AB might end up with more cred.
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The sky could be the limit for AB. New album 'Fortress' might see them break the crowded US market they way they have in Europe.
But I love what I am hearing. I'm late to the party, but better late than never. If you are not convinced get Classic Rock and give this sampler repeated spins. The songs just stay with you. Material too good to forget means they are doing something right.
Maybe there is something in the name, as I have definately 'altered' my opinion of the band.
