Alter Bridge – "The Guitars Are Breathing"

A deep dive into the heavy new Alter Bridge album - with Mark Tremonti and Myles Kennedy, two guitarists in perfect balance.

- By Ellie Rogers

Mark Tremonti and Myles Kennedy have been honing their guitar double act in Alter Bridge for the best part of two decades. As they sit together in the bar of London's Royal Garden Hotel, they laugh when Myles says, "We've been playing together for so long, we've now morphed into one being!"

Tremonti has long been celebrated as one of the finest and most articulate guitarists of his generation, and while Kennedy is most famous for his four-octave vocal range - displayed both in Alter Bridge and in Slash's solo band - he's also a skilful guitarist in his own right.

Their guitars are front and center on the new Alter Bridge album Pawns & Kings. Produced once again by the band's longtime collaborator Michael 'Elvis' Baskette, the album is focused on what Myles calls "meat and potatoes" guitar riffs, with a bare minimum of extraneous textures and instrumentation. As Mark explains: "A lot of times in the past, we used to have a string or a keyboard underneath to boost the music up, but on this record, we got rid of all that stuff. It sounds like the guitars are breathing. They're open and they have all this space to live."