AB VI Studio/Recording Thread

[AB4Lyfe]

It’s truly amazing how little this band has to say to get us hyped for the next record. Just shows how strong of a following they have.

[scarecrow]

Hi! A few of you might remember me. I was here from the beginning but not all that much since Blackbird.

I was a diehard Creed fan as a teenager and very into AB during the ODR years. Lost interest in hard rock about ten years ago but have always kept up with AB. When they're at their best, their songwriting is undeniable. Haven't seen them live since 2007 but caught a Myles solo show last year. Good stuff.

Anyway, John Carpenter is my very favorite filmmaker and Mark mentioning him is incredibly exciting to me. John is an amazing composer and I highly recommend his "Lost Themes" albums, not to mention his scores and Anthology record. Synth is vital to most of his scores (I'm a huuuuuge synth fan) but there's also been a lot of guitar, too. It's quite apparent to me from certain moments on A Dying Machine (especially "Found") that Mark is into film scoring and I can't wait to hear this thing.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fZ771POEli8

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lxbfshg2mcI

[anguyen92]

Anyway, John Carpenter is my very favorite filmmaker and Mark mentioning him is incredibly exciting to me. John is an amazing composer and I highly recommend his "Lost Themes" albums, not to mention his scores and Anthology record. Synth is vital to most of his scores (I'm a huuuuuge synth fan) but there's also been a lot of guitar, too. It's quite apparent to me from certain moments on A Dying Machine (especially "Found") that Mark is into film scoring and I can't wait to hear this thing.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fZ771POEli8

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lxbfshg2mcI

I think people will come around what Mark was saying regarding loops and synths in Walk the Sky if it sounded like those videos. I dig it. I think it's bound to be a good thing if AB is using that as a source of inspiration to switch gears in their approach in songwriting and sound.

[Fortress1988]

Guys are we going to get any teaser or clip today ??
Or the video directly on 28th ??

[scarecrow]

Anyway, John Carpenter is my very favorite filmmaker and Mark mentioning him is incredibly exciting to me. John is an amazing composer and I highly recommend his "Lost Themes" albums, not to mention his scores and Anthology record. Synth is vital to most of his scores (I'm a huuuuuge synth fan) but there's also been a lot of guitar, too. It's quite apparent to me from certain moments on A Dying Machine (especially "Found") that Mark is into film scoring and I can't wait to hear this thing.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fZ771POEli8

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lxbfshg2mcI

I think people will come around what Mark was saying regarding loops and synths in Walk the Sky if it sounded like those videos. I dig it. I think it's bound to be a good thing if AB is using that as a source of inspiration to switch gears in their approach in songwriting and sound.

Yes, I agree with what seems to be the consensus around here - that The Last Hero is easily their weakest record. I think the highlights of A Dying Machine and Year Of The Tiger are substantially better than just about anything on TLH; it's encouraging to hear that AB has done sort of a soft reset with the new album.

[RikJohannsen]

I totally disagree. You can't take anything away from songs like My Champion, Cradle To The Grave, The Other Side or The Last Hero (song). These are just a few of my favorites on the record. But for me personally TLH comes right after Fortress. Perhaps not mixingwise but the riffs, the chorusses are fantastic. I hate when people almost discriminate their last album. I can't understand it.

[anguyen92]

I totally disagree. You can't take anything away from songs like My Champion, Cradle To The Grave, The Other Side or The Last Hero (song). These are just a few of my favorites on the record. But for me personally TLH comes right after Fortress. Perhaps not mixingwise but the riffs, the chorusses are fantastic. I hate when people almost discriminate their last album. I can't understand it.

I like The Last Hero. I rated that as my album of the year of 2016 (my favorite year of music this decade), but let's be frank. The mixing and the layering of the guitars and Myles' vocals really made the songs and the album so exhausting to listen to that it makes it hard to want to relisten to the songs again, even if the songs were tremendous (which they were).

I do concede that Year of the Tiger and A Dying Machine were more enjoyable albums to listen to than The Last Hero, which is odd since they were produced and mixed by the same guy, and that sort of frustrates me to admit that. That stated, I got a better feeling about Walk the Sky in comparison to the build-up to The Last Hero.

[RikJohannsen]

You're absolutely right about the mixing and layering and stuff. It's like a huge sound wall and it's very exhausting at times. To me it just sounded like everyone was hating on the album as a whole. And that's simply not correct. Hopefully WTS will have a proper mix and a nice texture to it.

[peapod0609]

I totally disagree. You can't take anything away from songs like My Champion, Cradle To The Grave, The Other Side or The Last Hero (song). These are just a few of my favorites on the record. But for me personally TLH comes right after Fortress. Perhaps not mixingwise but the riffs, the chorusses are fantastic. I hate when people almost discriminate their last album. I can't understand it.

Take out My Champion and replace it with This Side of Fate and I would agree. Those songs are all top notch.

I also like the heaviness of Crows on a Wire and Island of Fools. Those are easily some of the hardest hitting riffs they've created. And I believe Myles wrote the main one for Island of Fools, so that's pretty cool. The songs themselves are decent as a whole.

But the rest of the album in my opinion is pretty much filler. I also enjoy Show Me A Leader at times, I like the intro and the solo. That's about it, My Champion, You Will Be Remembered, and Twilight are nice, but all three have varying degrees of cheesiness. I love the intro to Writing On The Wall but the rest of the song does nothing for me. Poison In Your Veins, and Losing Patience do nothing for me either.

Overall I don't hate the album, but I really only love four songs and I do consider it their weakest album. Now the ones I do like, I believe are up there with any of the songs they've ever written. I think the album is a little top heavy as a result.

[Mullet151]

I totally disagree. You can't take anything away from songs like My Champion, Cradle To The Grave, The Other Side or The Last Hero (song). These are just a few of my favorites on the record. But for me personally TLH comes right after Fortress. Perhaps not mixing wise but the riffs, the choruses are fantastic. I hate when people almost discriminate their last album. I can't understand it.

Take out My Champion and replace it with This Side of Fate and I would agree. Those songs are all top notch.

I also like the heaviness of Crows on a Wire and Island of Fools. Those are easily some of the hardest hitting riffs they've created. And I believe Myles wrote the main one for Island of Fools, so that's pretty cool. The songs themselves are decent as a whole.

Could not agree more I love the heaviness of those two songs. I do like the record as a whole. It is unfortunate it seems like everyone craps on last hero. The songs I like I really like and there are songs that never grew on me like everything in Blackbird and Fortress, even AB3 which I hated for a long time. I also really like poison even if the intro riff is identical to addicted to pain, I love the chorus and solo.

I am pumped about about walk the sky and always love how they try not to repeat themselves. However if they ever do try to recreate a Blackbird or fortress type 2.0 I don't think that would be a bad thing either.

[Timotheus]

The Last Hero has spectacular moments, but that's it. No spectacular songs, in my opinion.

That makes it really hard for me to listen to TLH. AB III has fillers, but at least you can skip those. You can't skip choruses or bridges.

[One Drew Remains]

I second Scarecrow on giving Carpenter's Lost Themes a listen. Some of my favorites (besides Halloween) you should listen to are...

Prince of Darkness theme
Christine theme
Escape From New York

All very interesting musically

[Troops4Tremonti]

From everything I've read so far I've got a really strong sense that this album is going to end up making me cry. I'm going through a lot of heavy shit right now and just by the brief descriptions that I've read about this album being the answer to AB III and being a more positive uplifting album I could definitely see that happening.

My grandmother will be 92 years old at the end of the year and unfortunately I think her age is catching up to her, she is very frail to the point that I can no longer look at my current situation and think yeah we'll be okay for another year. Unfortunately I don't think her passing is too far into the future, and when that day comes it is going to set in motion a lot of other events that are going to result in me having to find another place to live after 23 years of being in the same place.

Throughout this bands career they have had the ability with every single album that they have released to directly help me through whatever situations I've been going through at the time of their release. One Day Remains came out in 2004 and while not immediately who knew that three years later I would lose my grandfather and my father two weeks apart from each other. In Loving Memory helped me cope. In 2007 Blackbird came out and that being the year that the both of them passed away that record helped me to find peace, through Brand-New Start and the song Blackbird itself. I know Myles wrote that song for his friend Mark Morris, but if you knew how closely that song described my father and every single health problem he endured throughout his life you would think that that song was written for him.

Even AB III, when that record came out I wasn't in the best of mindsets. I guess I can understand why for many it might not be the best album but in my opinion there were a lot of absolutely amazing songs on that album. Isolation, Fallout, Words Darker Than Their Wings, Life Must Go on, pretty much the whole album for me is fantastic.

Fortress in my eyes was an absolute fucking masterpiece. Taking nothing away from any previous releases, I felt this the very moment I heard that album and I still feel this today, the groove of that record is insane. To me Fortress is only second to Blackbird.

There's a lot of songs on The Last Hero that I still listen to today even but I don't want this post to go on for five more days and I'm pretty sure everybody already gets my point. Every single member of Alter Bridge always seems to come out with something for me right when I need it at the right time. Even Myles' solo album left me in tears.

I'm definitely ready for this, lately I've had nothing to look forward to, at least now I do.

Keep on keeping on, my friend. Sometimes things get worse before they get better. My 2 year old son was in the hospital 2 weeks ago and I thought he might die there. He has a life long debilitating condition, but the Lord Jesus continues to be my source for peace and strength. When I take my eyes off of God, my life becomes exponentially harder - it's quiet remarkable.

[scarecrow]

I second Scarecrow on giving Carpenter's Lost Themes a listen. Some of my favorites (besides Halloween) you should listen to are...

Prince of Darkness theme
Christine theme
Escape From New York

All very interesting musically

Those are actually from his Anthology album (a re-recorded collection of his most famous movie themes) but the two Lost Themes records (original music unattached to any movies) are great, too!

[Andy92]

The Last Hero has spectacular moments, but that's it. No spectacular songs, in my opinion.

That makes it really hard for me to listen to TLH. AB III has fillers, but at least you can skip those. You can't skip choruses or bridges.

Did you miss out on the Skip-A-Chorus iPod?

[WaywardOne]

I remember some time between the reveal of The Last Hero as the album title and hearing the title track someone saying they couldn't stop hearing "The Last Hero" instead of "The Last Barron" in the Mastodon song. Anyone getting "Walk The Sky" instead of "Crack the Skye" now?

[fix]

Take out My Champion and replace it with This Side of Fate and I would agree. Those songs are all top notch.

I also like the heaviness of Crows on a Wire and Island of Fools. Those are easily some of the hardest hitting riffs they've created. And I believe Myles wrote the main one for Island of Fools, so that's pretty cool. The songs themselves are decent as a whole.

But the rest of the album in my opinion is pretty much filler. I also enjoy Show Me A Leader at times, I like the intro and the solo. That's about it, My Champion, You Will Be Remembered, and Twilight are nice, but all three have varying degrees of cheesiness. I love the intro to Writing On The Wall but the rest of the song does nothing for me. Poison In Your Veins, and Losing Patience do nothing for me either.

Overall I don't hate the album, but I really only love four songs and I do consider it their weakest album. Now the ones I do like, I believe are up there with any of the songs they've ever written. I think the album is a little top heavy as a result.

I totally agree about the songs you liked, exactly the songs I listen to occasionally.
To be fair though, I usually really like about half of an AB album. Which sounds kinda stupid, but the songs I do like I like so much I will jam them over and over. A few songs I like but a bit less and some I always skip. It’s like that every single AB album and I don’t have it less or more with TLH so for me it’s pretty much on par with the other albums.

[fix]

I remember some time between the reveal of The Last Hero as the album title and hearing the title track someone saying they couldn't stop hearing "The Last Hero" instead of "The Last Barron" in the Mastodon song. Anyone getting "Walk The Sky" instead of "Crack the Skye" now?

Haha well the guys are Mastodon fans as well so who knows...

[TTournier]

What a pussy, grow the fuck up

Is it a harsh reaction to something like this? Yep. Your reaction to his reaction isn't any better. Then again, we're not the manager for a band that's built its backs on making great music and established a loyal community of a fanbase.

I know, but it's not the first time that Tim has this divaish reaction about something. He has serious issues about his temperament and he doesn't even know how to properly react about things, so it's just me getting tired of him.

Also, working almost a year on the title of the album and the (until now) cover of the album? We all know how the guys work, they meet in January, they start composing and then they work on lyrics and everything else, so he is telling us that the album cover/title was made before even knowing the concept of the album? Come on...

Bro, his job isn’t about the album title. His job is to score gigs for AB. He worked a year long doing all the requisite Matter and meeting in order to have AB play at download, and all the other venues. He planned the whole marketing aspect of it as well. So I get why he is angry about the leak. It’s not just about the album name and release date.

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Been a minute since I have popped my head in, glad to see everyone is keeping up with the same vibes!

I was pissed off that the dates leaked for the UK run and was working hard at getting the announce moved up to meet the fans in a positive way but unfortunately for a tour of this size one just cant simply move things... regardless of what anyone thinks - there are tour partners and exclusives that are promised to folks leading up to this who simply said "no, you cant do this". I dont expect anyone outside of the industry to understand that but maybe folks shouldn't just assume either? Yes its 2019, yes this stuff happens, yes there are back up plans but at the end of the day you need a team to launch this stuff - be it tour partners or labels - they can jam ya up, which happened!

I dont have to but since I hold this community in the highest regards ill explain:
I woke up at 5am to around 200 DM's from folks letting me know its out, to folks asking for free stuff (Tickets and whatnot) - i was tagged in around 50 or 60 comments asking me to authenticate the photo..which for obvious reasons I cant do. I said this is really annoying to have this happen after a years worth of work and its insulting to get tagged in it so much. To put it into a metaphor, it felt like I had been planing a proposal to my girlfriend for a year only to have her friend tell her about it a day before I was going to ask.. You take it personal because you lived it for so long getting it ready and the folks that are spreading it / getting upset with you for not getting back to them are the same people you got free tickets for.. or Meet & greets for because you saw they lost their job a few months before.. or because you saw it was their birthday or someone who already got 2349805149085643 things from the store. Its hard to not get upset by that.
that being said I am really sorry if some people took that as "Fan shaming" - i honestly didn't mean it to be like that... when that was said I took down my post because that wasn't my intent.
It isn't the fans fault and I never said it was, they are pumped for the tour - I am pumped that they are pumped for it but with the proverbial shit hitting the fan I couldn't reply to or even keep up with the questions... as time goes by people then get upset when I am not replying to them.. then I get the "youre an asshole" or "you dont care about the fans because youre not getting back to us!" comments.. Damned if ya do - Damned if ya dont so I said how I felt towards the people who were coming at me like that.. I didn't mean it towards the vast majority.

On a personal note: I work for the band but I am a fan first, I actually engage the base and take things that they say to heart. I try my hardest to get the music out and the guys out to as many locations as I can... thus there has been a big upswing in the band since I took over the wheel. I am proud of that. Myself, as anyone who is passionate about what they do, they take pride in ownership... I dont have a problem with someone not liking a choice I had made / product we did - thats your right to feel that way but to be clear I dont have to deal with people personally coming at me either - I can defend myself and tell someone whats up. The band knows that.

I treat people the way I want to be treated and when someone is shitty to me - pal, I am shitty right back. Its the part of me that never left the block i grew up on.. that part of me got me to the seat I am in BUT that part of me is also whats leaves me showing my ass sometimes. its a balance.

Thanks for following my pages blackbirddd - I am always open to any constructive criticism and open to a conversation.

[Ubik]

^ Appreciate the clarification, we all get a little over-caffeinated during the release cycle. When we get news it's very much a



type situation. Single release is gonna be hype.