Never before have we had to learn and adapt as fast as we have done this past two years though, and one man who has struggled like most but come out the other side stronger and hardened, is Mark Tremonti.
The Alter Bridge and Creed guitarist returns with his fifth solo studio album, Marching In Time, and strips bare the lessons he’s learned and scars received for the world to see. The 12-track record begins with ‘A World Away’, the chugging guitars like a battering ram against a heavy-duty iron door, demanding to be let in like a hoard of bloodthirsty Vikings hellbent on having their name feared throughout the land. The speed metal of Tremonti’s riffs and double kick drums strikes terror in your eyes and sends a signal to your brain to engage the ‘fight or flight’ reaction. With the chorus’ soothingly clean vocals, “I swear that I will leave today, another life a world away,” breathes a new hope into the prospect of escaping from a toxic situation.
Drummed blast beats and down-tuned guitars emit an aura of dissonance, the disquietude felt through the ether as the hair stands on end and chills trickle down your spine in response to ‘Now And Forever’. Tremonti’s guitar solo is played and captured with so much urgency, his pent-up emotions of days gone by exorcised through two pieces of varnished wood and six strings.
Emotions run deeper in the morbid and desperate lyrics in ‘If Not For You’ and ‘Thrown Further’, as panicked scratches mirror the cry for help against the black dog that nips at your heals, “tearing at the walls, twilight darkness falls”.
Uplifting chord progressions act as the rainbow after the storm in ‘The Last Of Us’ and ‘Not Afraid To Lose’, the two tracks more akin to a typical Alter Bridge ballad. After the emotional rollercoaster of the beginning of the albums journey, if you don’t shed a tear, then you’re not human.
‘Under the Sun’ sees the struggle return, the prospect of breaking free from the white-hot chains of depression and restraint like a distant memory. ‘In One Piece’ follows up with a menacing riff that seeps inside your head and twists your emotions like that of Marvel’s Venom, the parasite whispering “you’re never getting out of here in one piece, you’ll always be scared, alone, on your knees. You could never be loved again if you tried, you’ll never be anything, but you’re mine.”
The album’s title track and finale, ‘Marching In Time’, showcases Tremonti’s expert storytelling ability, and recounts the tale of a father having a child during a global pandemic. The personal anecdote is heightened with string sections and is penned as a letter of advice to the infant with suggestions on how to navigate their future, and ends with words of wisdom that we could all do with hearing: “Don’t let this cold world change you, don’t ever go astray. Don’t you fail to keep on giving, don’t fail to show your strength.”
Tremonti’s Marching In Time reminds us that it’s okay not to be okay, and that no matter how dark the path may seem, as long as we have a companion either in ourselves or the people closest to us, we’ll get through it in the end.