TheAlterBridgeNation.com

Well, personally for me, I've already had as much of a good time with this Fortress album cycle that I'm ever going to get which culminated in me seeing them for the 1st time ever. The only thing I did wish for is that they kept going with this album cycle since it seems like, to me, there is so much left to do for it.

That said, this band is too damn inspiring and I somewhat feel a bit empty inside when they have absolutely nothing going on for the next couple of months to keep their brand going and stuff (in addition with all the other negative vibes in life that makes me feel empty).

In addition, there are areas like Mexico, South America, Canada, other parts of Europe that hadn't seen them at a headlining capacity, once, and I want those fans to feel the way I felt when I saw them for the 1st time ever. It was magic in the air and that for one night, everything felt the way it should be. I wish I could relive that again (minus helium voices).

I'm voting for a 10 minute epic and/or a middle eastern influenced song ala Kashmir

Aaron wrote:I'm voting for a 10 minute epic and/or a middle eastern influenced song ala Kashmir

Yes. This. A 10 minute Kashmir influenced song please.

Sign me up for being for an idea like that as well.

I like those songs, but only if they feel inspired to do it and not forced to. Blackbird is over 8 minutes long and feels like it's only 4-5 because it flows so well. Similar to how Master of Puppets seems to fly by while ...And Justice for All feels like it's never going to end lol. But hopefully the title track on Fortress will inspire them to keep pushing in that direction.

Really hope they do some longer songs again too. Would love to see AB get more progressive overall. Seems like their longer songs are always so good on all albums, Fortress especially. The songs that were my favorites and the ones I saw others like on Fortress were the songs over 5 minutes.

I'm stoked to hear the sessions are staring this year. It would be great to have an AB album out by aug/sept 2016.

One Drew Remains wrote:I'm stoked to hear the sessions are staring this year. It would be great to have an AB album out by aug/sept 2016.

If they started sessions in 2015 it'd probably be out before Aug/September 2016, though. Remember with Fortress they started Pre-Pro in January 2013 right? Fortress was released only 8/9 months later. So there's no doubt it'll be out in 2016; it's just a question of when.

I really want an intro and outro for the next album.

[youtube]http://youtu.be/BOPoIehoxJA[/youtube]

And cellos. Moar cellos.

Until the next album, they should release a special edition of Fortress, with the instrumentals as a bonus disc.

Jaredr24 wrote: Would love to see AB get more progressive overall.

+10000

Songs like Blackbird, Achilles or Fortress show that they are capable of writing experimental masterpieces. Next album should be filled with compositions like that.

And I dare to disagree. Not because progressive is bad (it's right the opposite, I like progressive stuff), but because it's just not than kind of a band.

Don't get me wrong - I know they are talented instrumentalists - but they don't have the progressive spirit at all. With AB it's all about passion and melodies and spirit - getting progressive would mean watering it. Longer songs? At first I say yes, but then - wouldn't that be forced? Like taking good hook and verses and thinking: 'what can I put in there to make it more sophisticated?'. Not to mention that they don't really play the more complicated songs on tour...

We wish them to evolve and explore some foreign lands, we like certain foreign lands ourselves. Butr that doesn't mean that they should land on the lands we like.

Progressive, in my mind, doesn't mean complicated or sophisticated, I'd just love for them to throw the rule book out when it comes to song structure. They've written intro-verse-chorus-verse-chorus-bridge-chorus songs for so long I actually think they really struggle to write out of it. And I'm not implying that every song has to have a complex structure like Cry of Achilles or Fortress either. I think of Porcupine Tree's Buying New Soul, which you could say is still a fairly typical song structure, but you don't notice it. If the song is well written, you wouldn't notice the song structure. I didn't realise Megadeth's Holy Wars... The Punishment Due didn't have a chorus until Dave Mustaine said so in an interview

Getting more progressive doesn't take writing 18-minute long instrumental parts. You can easily blend passion, melody and spirit with musical sophistication.
One thing which makes AB quite predicatable sometimes is their tendency to writing massive, pompous choruses. I wish they could come up with something less obvious, less energetic but more souful.
Don't get me wrong, I love AB and everything they do, but after having released 4 albums which are maintained in, more less, similar mood, it would be cool for them to look for some different kinds of musical features.

Yea, it's perfectly possible to be a progressive band and still write songs like Wish You Were Here.

To be honest I don't really care if they become more progressive. I just want to hear stuff from them I haven't heard them do before. A few moments on Fortress only made that feeling stronger.

I agree. Continue to push in areas they haven't gone.

That is what I meant. I just thought we overused the word progressive (and I don't mean 18min instrumentals, just a certain vibe and creativity which has nothing to do with AB).

New directions - yes. But the ones that are natural for them.

Fortress was a big step in the right direction. If they continue to challenge themselves, like they did on Fortress, we'll see another amazing album.

I would really like to see more songs like Calm the Fire and WDTTW. Those two proved to me that AB soar when they change it up. An album with just experimental songs like that, would be dope. Fortress was close, very close.

Listening to Fortress right now, forgot how amazing that bridge is.

It would be cool if the new album had some over-the-top, almost theatrical moments. There aren't a lot of moments like that on the last albums, but the few moments where they did it, it sounded great. The bridges of Waters Rising and Fallout comes to mind, and in its own subtle way the intros of Calm The Fire and Slip To The Void have a theatrical element as well.

Rosenblaetter wrote:That is what I meant. I just thought we overused the word progressive (and I don't mean 18min instrumentals, just a certain vibe and creativity which has nothing to do with AB).

New directions - yes. But the ones that are natural for them.

I don't know what would be natural or unnatural for AB, but pushing forward is always a good thing.
'Progressive' is a quite ambiguous term, and yeah, it may be overused. When it comes to AB we can speak more about "expermental".