Ab III

With their third studio album (and first for Roadrunner Records), Alter Bridge continues to build on the kind of innovative metal that makes it really difficult to believe that these guys are actually Creed with a different singer. The more versatile vocals of Myles Kennedy are highlighted from first cut “Slip Into the Void,” which somehow makes a Fender Rhodes jazz piano sound menacing as Kennedy’s gentle inflections are nearly whispered before exploding into a high, maniacal register that’s almost identical to those of Wolfmother’s Andrew Stockdale. And before the song ends, Kennedy slips into one of those nasal-toned post-grunge vocal styles synonymous with the late Layne Staley of Alice In Chains. The band’s “Isolation” is loaded with barbed hooks and blistering guitar riffs that throw punches over a sternum-rattling rhythm section. “Ghost of Days Gone By” downshifts to play like the band stole the song from Kid Rock’s Nashville studio.