Metal ey? The power, the riffage, the apocalyptic lyricism. How could any of these wonderfully unsubtle things ever be rendered completely impotent to the human ear?

Well, quite easily if this record is anything to go by.

Alterbridge features three former members of Creed. However, don’t let this put you off, as the excruciating lead singer Scott Scapp isn’t one of them. Instead, former Mayfield Trio singer Myles Kennedy stretches his considerably Chris Cornell-esque vocals over the band’s stupidly loud music.

In fact, it’s so loud that the band can’t even stop themselves from slipping some heavy power chords in during their many attempts at ballads.

Take Brand New Start for instance. It starts with just an intricate acoustic guitar line, but as soon as you hit the chorus, your head gets blown off in true ‘windswept power ballad’ fashion. While musically it’s very muscular and impressive, it’s also very cliché-ridden.

There are lots of lyrics about desert roads, desert suns and other desert-related things, while there’s also much metaphoric ‘falling’ and heroically showy guitar playing. It wouldn’t even be unfair to state that many of the songs make that fatal mistake of resembling one another.

However, it’s not all bad news. Despite the overriding sense of cliché and predictability that features on the album, there are a few decent moments. For example, opener Ties That Bind is the shortest song on the LP and arguably the best.

The song is heavy and relentless in equal parts and certainly doesn’t feel as soulless as some of the other tracks on show. The first single off the album, Rise Today, also has some redeeming moments despite the aforementioned predictability that riddles it.
 
As is usual with an album which features music of a deeply specific genre, this is primarily for fans of the band. It may also be of interest to fans of that deeply serious kind of US metal that emerged after the embarrassing rise and spectacular fall of nu-metal.