With live, in-person concerts all but extinct thanks to the global COVID-19 pandemic, lots of acts are doing their part this year to help audiences get their live music fix. Between drive-in concerts and live recordings, audiences are getting their fix thanks to the noted efforts. Veteran hard rock band Alter Bridge is just the latest in the mass of musical acts to help keep live music alive. The band is scheduled to release its new live recording Walk The Sky 2.0 Nov. 6 through Napalm Records. The 31-minute recording is brief, offering up only six live tracks, but it also offers a new studio track. Each noted element will receive its own attention here. They are just part of what makes the recording so appealing. The sequencing of the live content is also worth noting here. When all three elements are considered together, they make the recording a presentation that while maybe not a full-length live recording, still a success in its own right.
Alter Bridge’s forthcoming live recording Walk The Sky 2.0 is a welcome new presentation from the veteran hard rock band. It might not be a full-length live recording, but it still does its own share to entertain and engage audiences. That is proven in part through the six live performances that are featured in the recording. The live recordings in question are of songs featured in the band’s latest album Walk The Sky. While the track listing may not be Walk The Sky in its entirety, but it is almost half of the album. What’s more, audiences get in these live recordings a selection of songs that pulls from the beginning, middle, and end of the album in question. In other words, the band pulled from as much of the album as possible, rather than focusing on just one portion of the record. Simply put, the live material featured here overall gives audiences a rich, vivid picture of Walk The Sky. The only down side to the whole is that Napalm Records’ officials and the band only made this recording, whose songs were captured back in January and February during the band’s live run in support of Walk The Sky, available on CD and digital platforms. It is unavailable on DVD and Blu-ray. Maybe in due time. Getting back on topic, the live songs alone are just a portion of what makes Walk The Sky 2.0 such a successful new live recording from Alter Bridge. The sequencing of the featured songs plays into the recording’s presentation, too.
Audiences will note in listening to Walk The Sky 2.0 that the sequencing of the performances was very deliberate. The songs are mostly heavy, save for ‘Godspeed’ and the slightly more amped up ‘In The Deep.’ The first of the pair serves as a good way to break up the recording’s energy while the latter presents itself as a good, gradual crescendo of sorts back to the recording’s initial energy. The overall effect of the sequencing is that audiences’ engagement and entertainment is that much more ensured throughout. This element and the recording’s songs themselves join to more than make Walk The Sky 2.0 worth hearing. They are but a portion of what makes the recording successful, too. The recording’s featured new studio recording ‘Last Rites’ puts the final touch to its presentation.
‘Last Rites’ was written, recorded and produced this year during the COVID-19 pandemic lockdowns. The song captures a lot of the energy and mindset of everything happening today as a result of the pandemic. That is presented in part through the song’s heavy, guitar-driven arrangement. While the musical arrangement featured in this composition is mostly what audiences have come to expect from Alter Bridge, the song will also appeal to fans of Alice in Chains. That is because there are moments throughout the arrangement echo the dual vocal approach for which Alice in Chains came to be known over the years. The pairing of these two elements make for quite the engaging and entertaining work in its own right. When the musical arrangement is paired with the song’s equally hard hitting lyrical theme, the song gains even more impact.
The lyrical theme featured in ‘Last Rites’ comes across as a social statement of sorts. That is especially in the song’s chorus, in which front man Myles Kennedy sings, “The future’s all but written” before telling listeners to prepare for the death of their way of life. Going backward, he sings in the song’s lead verse, “I’ve seen the future/Yeah/The writing’s on the wall/And it don’t’ look that good to me/Tear out the sutures put in place to save us all/Well that’s your right/But wait and see/You don’t know where this goes/Wait until tomorrow/You don’t know/Where this goes/One day you will see.” This points at a statement that perhaps people need to be sure of what they are doing before they go and do it. This is inferred just as much in the song’s second verse, which finds Kennedy singing, “Protest the boundaries/Put in place that hold you down/Scream in defiance/Storm the gates…In the end you’ll seal our fate.” From here Kennedy and company return to the song’s chorus, which reminds listeners that “the future’s all but set in stone…there’s no time to wallow in the undertow.” Again, this hints at a message of being sure we know what we are doing and why, whether it be in reaction to everything going on in the world’s current age or any other time. This is purely this critic’s own interpretation and should not be taken as the only interpretation. Regardless, what can be inferred from this is that the song is clearly a commentary, and a hard hitting one at that. When it is coupled with the song’s equally heavy musical arrangement, the whole of the song impresses as much as the rest of the band’s catalog. Additionally, the song shows that the band still has plenty of heaviness and fire under its collective backsides, meaning it gives audiences plenty to expect in the near future from the band, in terms of new studio material, too. When this is taken into consideration alongside the success of Walk The Sky 2.0’s live material and its sequencing, the whole of the recording becomes a welcome new way for audiences to get their live Alter Bridge fix while also tiding audiences over until the band releases its next studio album or DVD/BD release of Walk The Sky 2.0.
Alter Bridge’s new forthcoming live recording Walk The Sky 2.0 is a successful new offering from the veteran hard rock band. That is proven in part through the recording’s live material, which all comes from the band’s latest album and performances captured early this year in support of said record. The sequencing of said songs adds its own special touch to the recording overall. The sequencing ensures the recording’s energy rises and falls in all of the right moments. The new studio recording Last Rites puts the finishing touch to the recording, as it is just as powerful musically and lyrically as any of the band’s existing compositions. Each item noted here is important in its own way to the whole of the recording. All things considered, they make the recording in whole a presentation that any Alter Bridge fan will appreciate, even being available only on digital, vinyl, and CD platforms.
The record will release on a variety of platforms, all of which are noted below.
Walk The Sky 2.0 will be available in the following formats:
-Jewelcase CD
-Jewelcase CD + Shirt (Napalm Records Mailorder only, ex-North America)
-Cream Vinyl LP Gatefold
-Inkspot Yellow/Black Marbled Vinyl LP Gatefold (Napalm Records Mailorder only, ltd to 150 copies in North America)
-2-CD Earbook [+Walk The Sky] (Napalm Records Mailorder only, ltd to 300 copies)
-Digital Album [+Walk The Sky]
More information on Walk The Sky 2.0 and Alter Bridge’s new single and video is available online now at:
Website: http://www.alterbridge.com
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/alterbridge
Twitter: http://twitter.com/alterbridge
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