A week or so ago I was stoked to hear a couple of tracks from this forthcoming live album from Alter Bridge (pre ordered this on iTunes) that I hyped its release by a day(September 7th) with a quick little post but with this album being on heavy rotation in my world for a week since its release back on September 8th. It’s time for the review of Live At The O2 Arena.
Myles Kennedy/Mark Tremonti/Brian Marshall/Scott Phillips have put out the ‘Contender’ for 2017 Album of the year in my book!
Hey, why not! AB’s 2016 effort The Last Hero came in at Number 3 for fav albums of the year and as with every AB release it gets better!
This album is a pure brilliant release on how a band in this day and age in the year of 2017 should record and release a live album!
Writing On The Wall starts the show off with its twirling like power riffs and Kennedy as he does on all AB tracks delivers the goods vocally!
Love the production on this album. Not any real polish, no tweaking and sounds live!
The other 18 live tracks are spread throughout AB’s 5 album career especially songs from The Last Hero being featured with Blistering versions of Crows On A Wire/Show Me A Leader/My Champion amongst others.
AB’s strength is in the writing of Tremonti/Kennedy who can write super heavy rock riffs during the course of a song yet still find that melodic bit during a chorus which Is what I would think you could say would be “Hook”. Tunes like Ties That Bind/Open Your Eyes/Isolation fit this format to a T!
Basically a ‘Hook’ followed by a swift boot in the ass musically speaking that is!
The live guitars of Mark and Myles are mixed brilliantly on this release! Myles guitar is on the left side/Mark’s is on the right and these guys are wicked players. Sure and justifiably so everyone goes on about Tremonti and how good he is! Ah yeah, just check out the track Metalingus as Mark plays like a man possessed!
But…
Myles holds his own on the 6 string something that no one ever writes about which is just goofy! Yeah we all know the cat can sing but Myles rips about a good 40% of AB solo’s on this release and I will say that opening solo on Show Me A Leader is absolutely sick! So good!
That’s the beauty of this band. A solid one two punch in the six string department. On one side you have Tremonti laying down Metallica like riffs whereas on the other side you got Kennedy playing old school power chord riffs! Best of both worlds!
Marshall and Phillips are exceptional on their instruments as well (Bass and Drums respectively) Phillips lays down a ton of cool drumming at times! Want double Bass? Want a ton of cymbal smashing? Yeah it’s all here…
19 live tracks and don’t think its just one big metal assault! No way Jose. Myles does an acoustic only song Watch Over You while Mark takes over the lead vocal on the prog rock like Waters Rising.
How about an additional 11 studio tracks that make up the Rarities portion of the album. 2 of the tracks (Cruel Son and Solace) are two unreleased songs from AB’s debut One Day Remains back in 2004! I’m not one to hunt down bonus studio tracks etc so to get them all included in this package is a total score for me!
This is a total must own if your into heavy rock with a singer who can deliver it live…..
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