Alter Bridge - The Last Hero. Album Review

Twelve years on since their impressive debut, Alter Bridge have consistently embodied impeccable musicianship along with dynamic and labyrinthine refrains, rewarding them great respect amongst their Heavy Metal contemporaries as well as a hugely devoted fan base. 

Their fifth studio endeavour, The Last Hero maintains the band’s relentless bombastic and rhapsodic nature, extensively piecing together complex musical narratives and complementing the experience with the occasional delicate restraint. The 13-track album, released via Napalm Records, manifests Alter Bridge’s most arduous and visionary undertaking to date with a high scrutiny on soaring manicured metal riffs and a cadence on modern politics.

Opener and first single,Show me a leader, kick starts the album in towering form, galvanising Alter Bridge’s now seemingly defined sound: melodic and concordant merged with a dynamic Metal soul. Performed on seven stringed guitars and utilizing alternative tunings, the song unfurls Alter Bridge’s large than life sonority to the absolute max.

Second single My Champion; a soul-stirring ballad with a hint of One Day Remains-era Alter Bridge with its benevolent and mirthful nature, swells with passion and warmth, comprising rallying choruses and inspiriting lyrics. This effort in particular demonstrating the mastery and finesse of Myles Kennedy and Mark Tremonti’s writing collaboration.

Tender movements are a rarity on The Last Hero,as tracks Losing Patience and Island of Fools amp up the heaviness and distortion whilst The Other Side subtly channels Metallica’s genre-defining riffage. Writing on the Wall showcases further Heavy Metal signatures and dark compositions whilst This Side of Fate,commencing with a gorgeous fingerpicked intro, unfolds into a sheer Metal Fusion and technical exhibition.

Subject matters reconnoitred on The Last Hero such as modern-day politics are executed tastefully as well as the descant of heroism, adroitly achieved in You Will Be Remembered. An affectionate serenade to the sacrifices of the Armed Forces, the ninth track on the album is as sincere as it is decorous and in an age seemingly construed by ceaseless conflict, it feels as appropriate and as profound as any musical act addressing a melancholy zeitgeist.

With The Last Hero, Alter Bridge have fashioned a tenacious synergy and further imposed their musical identity uniquely and cohesively; you have to hand it to them, they categorically demur to rest on their laurels.As each studiously made album expedites the metamorphic of the band,The Last Hero prospers in paying homage to their past, pervading their present and crusading loud and vehement into the future.

Track List

1. Show Me a Leader

2. The Writing on the Wall

3. The Other Side

4. My Champion

5. Poison in Your Veins

6. Cradle to the Grave

7. Losing Patience

8. This Side of Fate

9. You Will Be Remembered

10. Crows on a Wire

11. Twilight 

12. Island of Fools

13. The Last Hero

Pink Floyd - Dark Side of The Moon. Album Review

Most music historians, journalists, critics and lovers alike cite 1976 as the best year for mainstream music. However three years earlier saw the release of the decade’s most pivotal, groundbreaking and successful album and for over 40 years, The Dark Side of The Moon has been the crowning achievement of the concept album. Broken down into statistics and numbers alone in regards to success, Pink Floyd’s eighth studio album is an incredible achievement. After topping the Billboard Top LPs and Tapes chart, it subsequently remained in the charts for an extraordinary 741 weeks from 1973 to 1988 and as of today, it is estimated to have sold 50 million copies worldwide, making it the second most successful album after Michael Jackson’s Thriller. It has twice been remastered and re-released, been covered in it’s entirety by an assortment of other bands and acts and is frequently ranked as the greatest album of all time.

Statistics and numbers aside, what made Dark Side of The Moon so good and how did it endorse Pink Floyd to become one of Britain’s most endearing and successful rock bands of all time? To begin with, Floyd were already seasoned recording artists with seven albums to their name within five years and were already distinguished by their use of philosophical lyrics, sonic experimentation and complex live performances. Having emerged from the London underground in 1967 and under the creative leadership of founder Syd Barrett, Pink Floyd stood out from other acts such as Led Zeppelin, The Kinks and The Rolling Stones with an excessive take on progressive, experimental and psychedelic rock and a love of extended instrumental expeditions. However when Barrett departed in 1969 due to a mental collapse aided by excessive drug use, Pink Floyd struggled to re-establish their artistic footing and lost major ground on other popular acts of the time. However that all changed when in mid 1972, Floyd teamed up with engineer Alan Parsons at Abby Road Studios to create the album that would transform the band from a cult act into a global phenomenon.

Dark Side of The Moon fully showcased a band that had finally defined itself creatively and musically. Previous Floyd albums such as 1970’s Atom Heart Mother and the following year’s Meddle suffered greatly from filler, throwaway songs and enthusiastic compositions depleted by poor production. The Beatles will lay claim that they produced the first ‘concept’ album with Sgt Pepper (and Rolling Stone will back that claim to eternity) but unfortunately for the Fab Four, their efforts don’t come anywhere near close to Floyd’s with a greater exercise in musical and lyrical content and the sheer scale and reach of the cerebral nature that Dark Side of The Moon excels in. After all ten tracks and 42.59 minutes of running time, the album shows no weakness, no fillers, no shoddy production, just music that disseminates a record with textual and conceptual richness, demanding the listener’s involvement in their philosophical and abstract world. From start to finish, you can’t separate any track from the album due to them being so inextricably bound together into a seamless music experience.

 It’s intriguing to note that Dark Side of The Moon is sometimes considered a quintessential psychedelic album because in many ways, it’s really the contradictory of psychedelic music. It’s not that the production isn’t elaborate (and this was exemplary use of studio effects and production for its time) or the music isn’t extended into lengthy labyrinthine passages. It’s that the overall mood is so unrelentingly sullen. Encompassing and combining themes and emotions including greed and insanity as well passionately exploring the nature of human experience, the album shows that if psychedelia means anything, it’s that the music has always represented a way for listeners to embark on a mind-expanding journey of self-discovery. With Dark Side of The Moon, that’s simply not possible. The record more or less tells the listener what to think and what to feel. It’s devoid of anything that could be considered uplifting or invigorating, but audiences everywhere fell for it’s nefarious charm and have done since.

By 1973, Roger Waters, whom had replaced Barrett as Floyd’s frontman had entered the beginning of his bleakest and most austere phase as a lyricist and was responsible for most of the lyrics on the album. Though gloomy, this was Poetry in motion from Waters and throughout Dark Side he excelled in his dark pastures. The satire of excess and greed in Money is biting and derisive, but it is in no way mind-expanding. There are also many references to Barrett’s dissolution throughout the album, most notably on Brain Damage, a song about mental illness that’s so bleak; it will surely inspire listeners to doleful reverie rather than romantic idealism. Breathe with the lyrics, "All you touch and all you see is all your life will ever be," and Time, a cry of the pressures of life slipping by without people realising, also conveys this great understanding of the difficulties of their former leader and that their then modern life was leading to madness.

Similarly, though the music is artfully constructed and produced and this is where Dark Side of The Moon excelled over other albums at the time, in fact the seemingly conflicting musical content on the album heavily influenced Led Zeppelin’s double album Physical Graffiti. Using some of the most advanced recording equipment and techniques available at the time, the album displayed what could be eloquently achieved with four intelligent musicians, utilizing electronic instruments and wielding an armoury of sound effects with confident mastery and finesse. Achieving feats of trippy, unnatural sounds and musical transportation that are all the more amazing because digital production tools were still decades away, Floyd managed to create an album that sounded years before its time. Speak to Me, the album’s 90 – second long instrumental opener commences the record’s virtuosity and sets the tone for the effects laden masterpiece; with a gradual fade in of a synthesized heartbeat following through to a enthralling, richly layered mix of looped sounds effects, demoniac laughter (thanks to Peter Watts, Floyd’s road manager) and snatches of grasping speech. On the Run is another example of how well Dark Side keeps the listener engaged throughout an instrumental. Pulsing synthesizer sounds govern once again, incorporating snippets of tape loops, distorted sound effects and a wonderfully fitted drum beat. On the Run reaches its culmination in what sounds like a nuclear warhead in flight to its intended target before running seamlessly into next track, Time. 

Dark Side of the Moon, even after 40 years, remains an essential album. It’s not their most endeavouring effort or even their most easily accessible; The Wall gets that nod as a complex double album that’s burdened with pop hooks. It’s not their heaviest attempt, the 1977 Animals holds that characteristic. Nor even is its Pink Floyd’s most dulcet album, Wish You Were Here is much more evocative in that regard. Dark Side The of Moon, however, is the album where Pink Floyd became the band they needed to be and what the 70’s needed them to be. Fully progressing from previous decade reminders grappling with their drug induced issues and figuring out how to write songs and record them. It’s a redefinition as consequential as any in the history of music, and deservedly became the second biggest album in recording history. It’s rare when one album documents artists expressing so well their creative stride and it’s even rarer when that album becomes one of the most influential and best selling in music history, given that it is a fully fledged concept album makes it even more remarkable. It remains an essential part of any music collection—no matter what decade you were born in. If you don’t believe me just ask; Tool, Dreamthreater, Queensrÿche, Rush, A Perfect Circle and Radiohead and the thousands of other bands to have been influenced by Floyd’s 1973 masterpiece.

Top Ten Favourite Guitar Solos of All Time. (In no particular order)

Pearl Jam – Alive

Nirvana may have grabbed all the headlines and acknowledgements of the Grunge era, but it was Pearl Jam who produced the best album of the time and Alive was well and truly their signature anthem. Commencing with a simple power chord riff before Eddie Vedder’s soft mellow tones drop away to yield an outstanding vocal presence throughout the choruses. Once the third chorus climaxes, guitarist Mike McCready performs a magnificent outro solo, matching the high intensity of the choruses and masterfully delegating the ending of the song all to his command. According to the guitarist, the guitar solo was based on Ace Frehley’s on the Kiss song She, but unlike Frehley’s, the solo performed in Alive is the real crowning glory of the song, bringing it to a majestic climax very rarely seen in modern music. Operating in the G major and E minor pentatonic, McCready’s technique is simple but hugely effective achieving arguably the best two minutes of music of the Nineties.

                               

                       Led Zeppelin - Achilles Last Stand

By the late seventies, Led Zeppelin had already scaled huge heights in their continued dominance of stadium-filled hard rock. Their seventh studio album, Presence featured their last piece of greatness, a song so epic in composition it easily parallels with the adventures of its subject matter; Greek Mythology. Achilles Last Stand exhibits a beautifully intricate solo by Jimmy Page, proving why he is arguably one of the most important guitarists in the history of rock and roll.  Having often displayed an avid interest in multi-layering guitar tracks to achieve an orchestrated sound, Page overdubbed a dozen guitars for Achilles Last Stand with the solos ranging from multi-tracked harmony lines to single track lead lines. Whilst incorporating thematic repetition and extended melodic phrases, Achilles Last Stand represents Page’s most lyrical recorded work.

Alter Bridge – Brand New Start

Though globally known as a more-than-adequate songwriter in his days with Creed, it wasn’t until the rise of Alter Bridge where audiences would finally encounter Mark Tremonti, the solo guitarist.  Nowadays Tremonti is widely renowned as a virtuoso and his technical abilities of frightening fretwork are on another level entirely.  By creating a unique style that’s all his own by cherry-picking particular techniques from the likes of Paul Gilbert, Rusty Cooley and Eddie Van Halen along with his own, he has become one of the best guitarists working today. Brand New Start, featured on Alter Bridge’s second album Blackbird, sees Tremonti establish the solo as a very defining feature of the song, not just in build up but in the amount of time on the recording it takes up. Commencing with a slow bluesy pattern, the solo builds with the help of layered dynamics consisting of softer notes and runs that build into more extensive patterns that perfectly segue into the second half of the piece with intense fretwork creating a very endearing guitar solo.

                                          

                                
                               Guns N Roses – Nightrain

Guns N Rose’s debut featured many of Slash’s now legendary guitar masterpieces, exercising precise blues-inspired licks along with a raw Heavy Rock feel. However his cream of the crop on Appetite and one that gets fairly overlooked is his closing solo on 3^rd track, Nightrain. Revelling in the decadence with a hint of blossoming addiction, the song’s over-the-top enthusiasm and unforgiving adolescent tone concludes with an incredible solo from Slash. Both gritty and emotional and with bursts of technical mastery, the solo brings to a close Gun’s most “rock n roll” song they ever wrote and with it, fully showcased a guy who could play some serious guitar. Written in an A Minor pentatonic scale at first, the final phase of the solo incorporates legato speed techniques and fast paced trills.  

The Eagles – Hotel California

 A tribulation of materialism and excess, the title track to the Eagles' landmark 1976 album is quite simply, iconic and is without question one of the most famous rock songs of all time. However more famous then the song itself is the legendary duel guitar solo performed by Don Felder and Joe Walsh. The two-minute solo featured after the final chorus, has become a must-learn for axe enthusiasts across the world, with dozens of wannabe stars earnestly attempting to master its every legato lick and nuance. Performed in the same B minor chord progression heard in the song's introduction and verses, with the progression interspersed with 5ths and modal interchange, Felder’s and Walsh’s masterpiece employs all sorts of various articulations, such as hammer-ons and pull-offs, slides, bends, plus embellished with chromatic passing tones.

                                                    
                                     Pantera – Floods

Floods showcases Dimebag’s extensive repertoire on guitar more then any other Pantera song.  Such is the change up of tempo and feel during the nine minute-full track, mirroring the work of Dimebag’s two irresistible guitar solos alternating from punishing to the transcendental, it is the last minute and a half that really produces the brilliance the late guitarist possessed. The final solo was in fact a riff that was written back in the eighties but was then chosen to close the epic ballad on the band’s eighth studio release. While not technically preeminent, the outro’s appeal derives from its soothing melody, compelling use of key change and chromatic scales and an amazingly understated delay/ echo effect that is completely breathtaking to behold.

FUNKADELIC - Maggot Brain

Funkadelic’s third album, Maggot Brain was in theory an endeavour that closely followed their psychedelic funk and soul roots. With that said the title track’s 10-minute guitar solo owing more to the blues than anything else was not what was quite expected. However, this enchanting solo performed by the late Eddie Hazel is quite extraordinary. Legend states that vocalist George Clinton told Hazel during the recording session for Maggot Brain to play “like your momma had just died” – and his mind-blowing guitar solo, recorded in one take was the result. It’s been depicted by many as the greatest guitar solo ever, so fragile it feels as if it's been pulled out of the air, so deep you'll feel like reading a Leo Tolstoy novel. With a familiar structure and feel to Shine On You Crazy Diamond by Pink Floyd, not least in the blues influence, but in the way that the songs builds and builds, the solo delivers an intense emotional rollarcoaster with Hazel’s guitar both dripping with emotion as well, at times, sounding like it's going to fall in on itself, such is the passion and speed with which it's being played.

                   

                       Eric Clapton – White Room

Commencing with a unique-sounding guitar, tribal drumming and a very evident psychedelic vibe, White Room for the most part can be only described as an LSD enterprise. However the song comes alive (aswell as Clapton) in the final phase with an outstanding outro displaying a brilliant partnership between Ginger Baker on drums and Clapton’s legendary guitar work. After being influenced by Jimi Hendrix to incorporate a wah-wah pedal into his dexterity, Clapton took on this effect to new levels and as a consequence to this individual performance alone, he virtually wrote the book on how the wah pedal should be used for decades to come. Written in the D minor pentatonic region with a few major notes flung into the mix, White Room heralds Clapton’s finest guitar solo, one that is in fact even better live! 

 

Randy Rhoads – Mr Crowley

Mr Crowley is Randy Rhoad’s most definitive moment as a guitarist. Though most see Crazy Train as being the most consequential thing to come of Rhoad’s brief musical career, from a song writing standpoint, the epic sixth track on Ozzy’s solo debut has the edge with it’s eerie atmosphere and melancholic melodies, coming much closer in notion to that Black Sabbath had been striving towards in the later part of their tenure with Ozzy. (Think Technical Ecstasy or Never Say Die) The sheer number of memorable passages and revolutionary devices at play in this song guitar wise, in particular the multiple volleys of lead guitar brilliance eclipses everything on Blizzard of Ozz and the follow up, Diary of a Madman. The solos showcase not only jaw dropping technique and composition but a true melodic feel that few guitarists in any genre and style can attain. The middle and closing solos incorporate most of Rhoad’s signature techniques including melodic legato arpeggios and sweep picking scales, rapid-fire pentatonics and fast trills, with a graduate build in force and intensity, the instrumental forms a plaintive crescendo that leaves the listener completely amazed.

                                  

                        Stevie Ray Vaughan – Pride and Joy

After popularising music fans throughout the 1940’s to the late 1960’s, electric blues music suffered a bleak and inconspicuous period during the dance and pop era of the seventies and eighties. However that all changed when a young guitar player by the name of Stevie Ray Vaughan released his debut album, Texas Flood, along with his backing band, Double Trouble. It is very hard to overestimate the impact Vaughan had on the blues and how he appeared to exclusively spark a revitalisation of the genre alone. Critics at the time claimed that, no matter how prodigious Vaughan's instrumental talents were, he struggled to forge a distinctive voice on his music. Instead, he wore his influences wholeheartedly on his sleeve, whether it was Albert King's pinched yet muscular soloing or Larry Davis' emotive singing. Pumping fresh blood into a familiar genre, Vaughan openly celebrated his influences and his two best self-penned songs feature on his debut, “Pride and Joy” and “Love Struck Baby.” It is Pride and Joy that takes centre stage on this list though featuring one of his most famous guitar solos. Encompassing groove turnarounds around an E7 chord pattern, Vaughan’s middle solo in Pride and Joy epitomises every skillful technique he had at his disposal and showcases exactly why he is considered the greatest blues player of all time.   

Titanfall - Review (Xbox One)

It’s loud, rambunctious, audacious and quite frankly, rather fun. Delivered by the guys who transformed the online first-person shooter with the Call of Duty franchise, Titanfall is the latest bombast mash-up of grandiose campaign and multiplayer madness to hit the gaming sphere. 

Published by Electronic Arts and developed by newly created Respawn Entertainment, (founded by the original architects behind the Call of Duty creator, Infinity Ward) Titanfall pits players into a futuristic backdrop titled, The Frontier. Earth has been all but left behind and now generations of humanity are residing in the deepest reaches of space. Players are dropped into the distant frontier, which is currently being ravaged by war. A persisting conflict between the Interstellar Manufacturing Corporation, (IMC) a massive industrial company seeking to enrich further resources and the Frontier Militia, a combination of colonists, mercenaries and pirates collectively rising together as citizen solders, discontent with the IMC’s exploitation of the Frontier.      

The story allows players to compete in both, the IMC and the Militia and is integrated across nine maps and two modes of play; Attrition, which is essentially Team Deathmatch, and Hardpoint Domination, where you acquire points for holding three capture points, titled A, B and C respectively. Throughout the campaign commanders and officers appear in a small video link in the right of your screen helping the story to evolve, blaring objectives and bickering amongst themselves in an assortment of stereotypical personalities and accents, from cavalier Americans to a grouchy Londoner, who sounds very much like Idris Elba. Though the story draws on noticeable parallels with Killzone and Red Fraction, it is more than adequate for a first-person shooter and to be perfectly honest, few people have turned their attention to Titanfall for a well scripted, engaging and original story. 

Instead, Titanfall provides gamers with an ultra fun and incredibly fast and fluid multiplayer-only experience with the emphasis on killing the opposition, achieving varied objectives and gaining experience points, enabling your character to level up and in doing so, unlocking superior gadgets and weaponry. It may sound all too similar to the creator’s other famous shoot-em-up franchise, however Titanfall has a few fundamental differences, the main one of which is given away in the title. Yes, the Titans themselves. Piloting these giant 20-foot robotic war machines that burst down from the sky and allowing you to clamber aboard and stomp around the terrain, brawl with other Titans and crushing the infantry on the ground provides many hours of riotous fun. Not just inferior with its size, each titan is equipped with it’s own array of weapons including a Quad Rocket, Plasma Railgun and an Arc Cannon as well as armed with a Vortex Shield, allowing you to catch projectiles fired at you and returning them straight back at the enemy.  

Though the magnitude of the titans may seem unconscionable when fighting on the ground, you will be forgiven for thinking being on foot plays second fiddle to piloting these mechanical monsters. However when you are not in your titan, you are efficiently equipped with anti-Titan weapons, a jet pack allowing you to chain together wall jumps and tactical abilities including an invisibility cloak. One of Titanfall’s best features is the simplicity of movement around each level. Reminiscent of 2011’s Brink, which incorporated a first-person shooter with parkour-style movement, Titanfall excels with a great fluidity of action and warfare across each map, allowing users to be in the thick of the action throughout the entire performance.     

Visually, Titanfall looks sublime on Xbox One, with crisp, sharp and gorgeous environments bestowed for all to see, though due to the chaotic carnage proceeding all around, you probably wont have too much available time to take all of it in. On looks alone, Respawn’s debut is a gorgeous-looking attempt however; it doesn’t feel like a truly next-generation benchmark setter, especially with the potential capabilities of the next-gen consoles. The graphics max out as expected in alluring beauty with HDR lighting and polished detail, but the game itself doesn’t incorporate particular features that would have elevated Titanfall to the top of the tree of online shoot-em-ups. No destructive scenery, evolving maps or even any movement of terrain or vegetation. Ok, that might be asking too much of a first endeavour from Respawn, but they may have missed a trick in fundamentally separating Titanfall completely from other multiplayer-based shooters such as Battlefield or Call of Duty. Because of this, visually, Titanfall is more evolutionary rather than revolutionary.     

Another criticism of Titanfall is the game’s unimaginative inclusion of tried and tested multiplayer modes. Again, Respawn have missed a trick here in really aiding the game’s next-generation feel with game structures and modes that remain all too recognisable, too cautious and convenient compared to it’s blistering and innovative gameplay. Attrition is basically Deathmatch, Capture the Flag is available on nearly every-single first person shoot-em-up game and Pilot Hunter is just Deathmatch where players can only gain points by killing other pilots rather than destroying Titans and grunts. The most inventive mode available is the Last Titan Standing option, which pits players in a Titan as soon as the game commences with the aim to kill off your opponents and remain as the only Titan still operating at the end of the round. Including traditional multiplayer modes isn’t the worst idea imaginable and it’s never bad to feel nostalgic and to reminisce over classic multiplayer modes, but the lack of originality in Titanfall’s multiplayer is another deficiency that holds it back from becoming a genre-revolutionary game.   

Overall though, the underlying experience of playing Titanfall is one of revitalisation and reinvigoration, taking a familiar FPS formula and making it feel contemporary and dynamic, though it's a shame it relies so profoundly on the familiar. The game modes, arsenal, sprint speed are all derived from some of the most successful online shooters of recent times, but by renovating the way you move across maps, Titanfall fully reinvents what it feels like to play and compete in a recreational shooter. It ticks all the boxes on how a game should really be; fun, easily accessible and worthy enough for you to come back for more. The high-octane action intertwines fantastically well with the muscular, tactical titan battles, creating mass-scaled battlefields that prosper in indulgence and possibility. Titanfall, though not in such a leap that may have been expected before its release, is still a commendable surge forward for the online shooter, combining the energetic and new with the tried and sincere to establish something extremely fun and entertaining. Not without it’s issues, Titanfall remains as the most important exclusive for the Xbox so far and with an inevitable sequel in the minds of it’s makers, these concerns will no doubt be amended next time. But until then, Titanfall remains one of the most enjoyable and invigorating shooters the genre has seen in years.    

  

   

Black Stone Cherry Magic Mountain

Ignore the album title, (because lets face it, it’s pretty awful) Black Stone Cherry’s fourth instalment in their admirable crusade of southern hard rock, is a commendable effort and a decent listen. Released via Roadrunner records and produced under the expertise of veteran rock architect Joe Baressi, (QOTSA, Bad Religion, Soundgarden) Magic Mountain sees the Kentucky foursome return with fresh material invoking similar attributes of their previous efforts; brash down-tuned guitar hooks, quick-paced fretwork, melodic and harmonious choruses and that signature southern rock sound stapled forcefully down since their debut eight years ago. 

Since their self-titled debut, the band have solidly enhanced their hard rock repertoire, along with successful tours with Lynyrd Skynyrd, Whitesnake, Alter Bridge and Bad Company and prominent appearances at the Download festival, Black Stone Cherry have earned a devout following across the UK and US. Regarding their third release, Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea, many argued they had swapped their unique sound and focused on a radio-friendly approach. To quote a favourite term from music fans, it was disputed that they had “sold out.” That said, Magic Mountain musically is much closer to their first two albums. Reminiscing that harder-edged rock sound that won them much praise earlier on in their music careers, the sound in BSC’s latest release, is very similar. Equivalent to what was probably expected from their fans, more importantly, the album is just as entertaining to listen to as their first two offerings.

The album opener, “Holding on…to letting go,” commences the record with trademark unapologetic, brutal and down-right heavy riffs before unleashing a high tempo chorus and energetic breakdowns. Immediately follows is “Peace Pipe,” a groove-laden anti war number featuring smooth vocals from front-man and lead guitarist Chris Robertson and exhibiting an impressive guitar solo. Magic Mountain continues to throw up dynamic rock anthems; “Bad Luck & Hard Love,” “Fiesta del Fuego,” and “Never Surrender,” with the former executed with Alter Bridge-like precision and exactitude and heralding one of BSC’s most impressive riffs to date. “Me And Mary Jane,” combines blues-inspired licks with the band’s formulaic modern rock sound, showcasing the edgy, hard rock swagger that separates them from the likes of Nickelback and Theory of a Deadman. Though the song is simple and uncomplicated, it still kicks a serious bite, with unashamed arrogance and aplomb and shrewd use of production effects, it will no doubt become a firm favourite on rock radio stations. As with previous efforts, BSC still have a soft spot for rock ballads with “Runaway” and “Sometimes” holding the sentimental flag through Magic Mountain. The stripped-down  “Sometimes,” is one of the highlights on the record, drawing parallels in sound with Pearl Jam, the tender ballad is a timely reminder of how impressive BSC are at pausing the high-octane rock and roll sound and expressing a more affectionate side.

Though Magic Mountain is an impressive effort, the album does have its flaws, which in turn prevents it from matching or bettering BSC’s first two records. Once the 13-song compilation is concluded, it feels certain songs should not have been featured and that more focus should have been paid in seeing a far more accomplished package of songs constructed. The title track of the album is a weak link, suffering from repetitive song structuring and bedlamite lyrics and lacking artistic merit. If it was an extra or a B-side track then it would probably go unnoticed, however the title track of an album of this magnitude should be far stronger and more imaginative then “Magic Mountain.” “Hollywood in Kentucky” and “Dance Girl” are also examples of BSC losing slight focus on constructive and original song writing. Both tracks incorporate stereotypical and at times futile lyrics, disappointing considering the band’s usual erudite and polished core on lyric writing.     

Despite this, BSC’s fourth album is a welcome return to form from a quartet very much assured in their continued presence within the 21^st Century’s selection of hard rock acts. The record showcases the band members at the peak of their playing abilities. Chris Robertson’s vocals throughout Magic Mountain are as dominant as always, proving why he is currently one of the best in the business. Ben Wells on rhythm guitar adds to the great dexterity of BSC’s riff-making process and provides an excellent backup to Robertson’s lead playing. On bass, Jon Lawhon, is as prominent as ever, just like in previous albums, his lusty and resounding grooves really power the music to a greater level. Drummer John Fred Young, BSC’s secret weapon with his belligerent, aggressive and masterful force behind the kit, comprehensively induces all elements of the heavy rock genre that Black Stone Cherry lives and breathes by. Magic Mountain might not be the band’s landmark album that will empower them into rock and roll history, though it is still an excellent attempt from a band continuing to elicit powerful and enjoyable rock music to fans of this genre. Black Stone Cherry are better than most modern acts in displaying their own character and distinctive nature within their music and Magic Mountain is no different. Notably enlisting passion, depth and full-force rock and roll from start to finish, BSC’s latest instalment, though not defining their evolving legacy, will certainly help to prolong it.