Official "The Last Hero" Thread (pre-release discussion)

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SamarthJoshi
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Re: Official "The Last Hero" Thread

Post by SamarthJoshi »

anguyen92 wrote:Honestly, Andy mentioned it, a while ago, but yeah, I'm really surprised on how many songs are officially released before the album is out. Four songs are officially out before The Last Hero album is released, that's a big improvement compared to just Addicted to Pain for Fortress and Isolation and Words Darker Than Wings for ABIII.
They might have seen a rise in album sales after their tweets like "Pre-Order our new album and get <insert_song_name> instantly" .

No doubt that we are very lucky to get so much music "officially" before album release.
As per the choice of songs, I feel they are all pretty unique in their own way and give an impression of a very dynamic album.
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Buffon
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Re: Official "The Last Hero" Thread

Post by Buffon »

leadguitar_85 wrote:Sorry all, but this mix sounds like a giant slop bucket full of shit. And the songs are entirely unimpressive. This coming from someone who has hung on with white knuckles awaiting every album, single and b-side release since ODR. Not sure what everyone else is listening to here. This is bad.
Honestly, the best thing Alter Bridge could do right now is to ditch this Elvis chap. Their production has been going steadily down with each album he's done, with this one being comfortably the worst yet from the evidence so far.

The guitar tone has gone to absolute s*** to the point where even the good riffs sound like monotonous chug-a-chug crap. And I honestly have to commend him for spending 9 years producing for a band with one of the very best singers in the world right now, and continuously (for literally four albums now) deciding that the best way to showcase his amazing vocals is to bury them under layer upon layer upon layer of ridiculous effects. It was cool in Come To Life, pretty awesome in Slip to the Void and has been entirely unnecessary ever since.

The Fortress songs sound 15X better played live without all of his crap drowning out the actual music. I'm certain all the new ones will be exactly the same.

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WaywardOne
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Re: Official "The Last Hero" Thread

Post by WaywardOne »

It's amazing how different music tastes and opinions are around here because I finally just listened to The Other Side and that was ABSOLUTELY INCREDIBLE. Goosebumps for days! No disrespect for the other 3 songs or the people who favor them, but I'm all about this song. Can't say enough good things about it.

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Re: Official "The Last Hero" Thread

Post by chtimixeur »

@Buffon : sorry, it won't happen. Elvis is unfortunately here to stay. If only they worked with Nick Raskulinecz or Joe Barresi... I mean, just listen to the new KoRn songs : Raskulincez has brought this band back from the dead because he knows what he's doing.

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One Drew Remains
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Re: Official "The Last Hero" Thread

Post by One Drew Remains »

I do think some of the songs sound a little busy. With you on that one.
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leadguitar_85
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Re: Official "The Last Hero" Thread

Post by leadguitar_85 »

chtimixeur wrote:@Buffon : sorry, it won't happen. Elvis is unfortunately here to stay. If only they worked with Nick Raskulinecz or Joe Barresi... I mean, just listen to the new KoRn songs : Raskulincez has brought this band back from the dead because he knows what he's doing.
Oh I know he isn't going anywhere. And it's a shame. I don't know what's so wrong with giving these songs space to breathe. I don't know what's so wrong with allowing four pretty freakishly good musicians contribute to the overall showcase without drowning the whole thing out with layer upon layer of muck. I'm not going to throw a fit if I don't like the actual song or its content (you can't expect everyone to have the same taste). But whatever this album could be sounds like it will be buried under a Babylonian captivity of horrid production. Again, sad.

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Re: Official "The Last Hero" Thread

Post by Dolo »

Absolutely agreed on Elvis thing. If you take a listen to Poison in Your Veins or Writing on the Wall you can hardly distinguish between the notes in the main riff.
The same goes for The Other Side. I wanted to tab out the chorus, but I can't hear shit beneath the vocal layers and drums.
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chtimixeur
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Re: Official "The Last Hero" Thread

Post by chtimixeur »

I'm not an Elvis fan, but there are worse producers out there. Greg Fidelman is one of them. Just listen to the new Metallica songs : they're super compressed, and the band sounds tiny.
The track by track review says a lot about Alter Bridge's relationship with Elvis.
http://www.musicradar.com/news/guitars/ ... ack-642777
Elvis was like, ‘Nope, nope, I don’t really like it; let’s do something else.’

“And everybody in the band was like, ‘Man, what’s the deal? This is a good catchy riff. This could be like an Isolation and a song our fans really like.’ And he said, ‘To be honest with you, I don’t want it to sound too close to what you do with Tremonti. It sounds more like Tremonti than it does Alter Bridge.’ And then the rest of the guys were like, no we like it - it’s not speed-metal; it’s just heavy. But he kind of had it out for it. But he wanted to keep it sounding different from Tremonti, because it’s the same producer with the two different bands. But we finally talked him into it.

“It was his least favourite song for a long time, and on every record Elvis has his least favourite song.
They're trying too hard to please him.
Elvis was hellbent on having a swing song, something with a big heavy swing to it. He referenced one of our songs from ABIII and he wanted this heavy groove swing song.
Looking at the past to create something new is not a good way to move forward and create something fresh.

You also have to remember he wanted Mark to write a Blackbird-like song during the Cauterize/Dust sessions.

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Re: Official "The Last Hero" Thread

Post by abw1987 »

I'll grant you that this album is a little busy, but I don't think we can point the finger solely at Elvis. If anything, this is a stylistic choice made by the band. Just listen to Slash's World on Fire album and you'll see that Elvis is perfectly capable of producing a more straightforward sound that focuses on each instrument individually.
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Re: Official "The Last Hero" Thread

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Buffon
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Re: Official "The Last Hero" Thread

Post by Buffon »

abw1987 wrote:I'll grant you that this album is a little busy, but I don't think we can point the finger solely at Elvis. If anything, this is a stylistic choice made by the band. Just listen to Slash's World on Fire album and you'll see that Elvis is perfectly capable of producing a more straightforward sound that focuses on each instrument individually.
Fair point. I forgot he did World on Fire too. Having said that, however, that album also suffers from the too-many-vocal-effects problem. Sounds like three Myles singing simultaneously on certain songs, the title track, 30 Years to Life, Bent to Fly, Iris Of The Storm all spring to mind.

I just wish these guys would give One Day Remains a long listen one day and imagine how amazing it would sound with a second guitar layered on top. Even Blackbird and AB III are fine, it's only with Fortress that it became a wall of noise.

On the subject of stylistic choices, have Myles and Tremonti also down-tuned between AB III and Fortress? There's a definite shift in guitar tone between AB III / Blackbird and the next two. Not sure it's done the sound any favors either, to be honest.

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antiwal
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Re: Official "The Last Hero" Thread

Post by antiwal »

Wooo finally hearing The Other Side now its on their official You Tube - what a monster!!! Sounds like it may be the "Still Remains" (so underrated) type track on this album. Love it.

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Re: Official "The Last Hero" Thread

Post by Timotheus »

Buffon wrote:
abw1987 wrote:I'll grant you that this album is a little busy, but I don't think we can point the finger solely at Elvis. If anything, this is a stylistic choice made by the band. Just listen to Slash's World on Fire album and you'll see that Elvis is perfectly capable of producing a more straightforward sound that focuses on each instrument individually.
Fair point. I forgot he did World on Fire too. Having said that, however, that album also suffers from the too-many-vocal-effects problem. Sounds like three Myles singing simultaneously on certain songs, the title track, 30 Years to Life, Bent to Fly, Iris Of The Storm all spring to mind.
Most of the songs on World on Fire are overdubbed by Todd Kerns though. 95% of the harmonizations are done live as well.
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anguyen92 wrote:
Oh well. Deal with it.

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Re: Official "The Last Hero" Thread

Post by Ubik »

antiwal wrote:Wooo finally hearing The Other Side now its on their official You Tube - what a monster!!! Sounds like it may be the "Still Remains" (so underrated) type track on this album. Love it.
Reminds me a lot of Show Me A Sign. Definitely ABIIIish.
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Re: Official "The Last Hero" Thread

Post by mradu1960 »

Not liking this new one at all "for AB". It's a good song, but sounds definitely more like a Tremonti solo song than an Alter Bridge song. Just me, but this is really NOT what I want to hear from AB. The first three songs are cool. This one....for me, not so much.

Also, what the hell is the point of releasing all of these songs. That's 4 songs now (out of 13) released. Where has the "art of excitement" for a new album gone? Release ONE song, and then we wait for the album...just doesn't make sense to me. :slam

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Re: Official "The Last Hero" Thread

Post by Andy92 »

There are a lot of layers on the songs we've heard so far, but I think the comments people have made regarding the difficulty in distinguishing between notes in some of the riffs comes down to a couple things. I think one reason is the amp rigs they use are different than they used to be. Mark used to have a Dual Rec with his Bogner, and that was pretty much it. I'm not sure what all amps were used on this album, but the tones sound different to me than they used to. It also seems like they've been using some lower tunings that tend to muddy the clarity in the individual notes some. I don't think it's all due to the production from a mixing perspective (although that's a good piece of it), but I also think the guitar rig changes over the years play into it as well.

I also think it's okay to have a producer that disagrees with band members. Now, that doesn't mean he's the best fit they could possibly hire, but you need some sort of disagreement at times to give the band ideas from a different perspective. If your producer is just a "yes man," you might as well record it yourself and pay someone to just mix/master the recordings.
anguyen92 wrote:Oh well. Deal with it.

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Re: Official "The Last Hero" Thread

Post by Dolo »

Andy92 wrote:I don't think it's all due to the production from a mixing perspective (although that's a good piece of it), but I also think the guitar rig changes over the years play into it as well.
It is actually due to the production. Bands like Periphery or Tesseract also use super low tunings but their mixes sound incredibly spacious and crystal clear.
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Re: Official "The Last Hero" Thread

Post by anguyen92 »

mradu1960 wrote:Also, what the hell is the point of releasing all of these songs. That's 4 songs now (out of 13) released. Where has the "art of excitement" for a new album gone? Release ONE song, and then we wait for the album...just doesn't make sense to me. :slam
Technically, it's 15 songs that's going to be released in certain parts of the world soon. Also, if the band can really have it their way, they would also just release one single and wait for the album, and that's what they did for Fortress. I, too, would have liked it if they officially released one song and done. However, if they and their management felt they can get more hype and album sales by releasing more songs before the album is out, then it's their decision to make.

Also, you get people that are very very VERY impatient (especially if they do not like the lead single, which some people actually don't regarding Show Me A Leader) and would end up complaining and wanting more songs before the album is out.

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Re: Official "The Last Hero" Thread

Post by Jim »

I appreciate how many differing opinions there are flying around so far!
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Re: Official "The Last Hero" Thread

Post by DCooper727 »

mradu1960 wrote:Not liking this new one at all "for AB". It's a good song, but sounds definitely more like a Tremonti solo song than an Alter Bridge song. Just me, but this is really NOT what I want to hear from AB. The first three songs are cool. This one....for me, not so much.
I'm the exact opposite; The Other Side is the only released track so far that doesn't sound like AB were chasing single material. The mainstream sound from SMaL/My Champion/Poison is just not what I want at all. Mark even admitted in the track by track that they are at their best when they go for the epic tracks, and I honestly wish they'd just drop these vcvcbc tracks entirely in favor of more progressive tracks. Just seems like they're wasting their potential when they could be so much more.

As for the AB/Tremonti comparison, I almost wish that Tremonti hadn't started his side project due to this complaint. It's like AB isn't allowed to be heavy because people will start whining and saying that the heavy songs should just be Tremonti tracks now.

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