ALTER BRIDGE is no stranger to cranking out a new album every few years. The band has their album cycles so precise you could set your watch to them.  Fortunately, this four-piece group from Florida continues to discover new ways to inject some creative life into a 90's Post-Grunge sound that feels dated and uninspired across the industry and the genre as a whole. Playing with more orchestral nodes, "Walk the Sky" is grander and acts as a statement piece for a band whose fanbase has grown vast over the years. Fans of the band will no doubt place it within the top list of the group's greatest achievements.

From the start, "One Life" opens things up with melancholic calmness, this subtle prelude sets the stage for "Wouldn't you Rather", a typical run of the mill banger the band delivers on every album. It's single worthy, catchy, and safe. The same can be said for "In the Deep" though Myles Kennedy utilizes greater vocal range. Around the mid-point of the album "Indoctrination" takes things darker while "Forever Falling" is a center piece filled with sweeping guitar movements and solos that still give you a taste of METALLICA. The album is full color and varying degrees of heavy and soft moments that all flow together effortlessly, Truth be told, I've never really been a fan of band, and my lack of enthusiasm for each new track made much of the later tracks bleed together as each passing minute grew longer. Clocking in at about an hour, "Walk the Sky" is as progressive as ALTER BRIDGE has ever gotten, and for that they deserve credit for such a long-winded effort.

Fans of ALTER BRIDGE are in for a real treat, as "Walk the Sky" feels like an album that has been years in making. It's one of those projects a group has wanted to make all along but lacked the experience and identity to do so. I may not be the biggest fan of the band, but I found their creative push, and willingness to envision something more epic worth my respect and my ear. It's a complete work.