ALBUM REVIEW: Marching in Time – Tremonti

With a career now on the verge of spanning some three decades, there are few guitarists to have had as big an impact in contemporary rock music as Mark Tremonti. Initially rising to prominence with CREED, and later hitting even loftier heights with ALTER BRIDGE, it came as little surprise to many when in 2012 the virtuoso guitarist decided to spread his wings even further and bring to life an eponymous side-project known as TREMONTI. Debut album All I Was soon arrived to critical acclaim, and he’s followed it up with a spread of increasingly impressive records in the years since, culminating in previous release, the conceptual masterclass A Dying Machine. Now, presumably having had a lot of extra free time over the last 18 months or so thanks to a certain worldwide crisis, he’s back with a new effort entitled Marching in Time.

For the most part, Marching In Time sees TREMONTI doing exactly what you’d expect by this point in their career, with much of the album’s runtime taken up with punchy, arena-ready hard rock anthems that err towards the heavier end of the guitarist’s sonic palette. Opener A World Away starts off with foreboding machine-gun drum stabs, before launching off into an immediately anthemic mid-tempo stomper of a track that somewhat sets the tone for things to come. If there’s one thing Tremonti has always done well throughout his entire musical career, it’s penning these exact kinds of huge anthems. Marching In Time is once again absolutely stacked with them, with the likes of If Not For You, Thrown Further and the catchy-as-hell Let That Be Us all merging an arsenal of catchy riffing with an obvious knack for huge vocal melodies that’s long been a welcome element of TREMONTI as a project. Tracks like Bleak and Thrown Further continue to display this hard-rock songwriting nous, with the latter in particular sounding absolutely thunderous thanks to yet another stellar production job from Tremonti’s regular collaborator Michael ‘Elvis’ Baskette.

Not quite everything’s relentlessly heavy though, as evidenced by a number of tracks spread across the album’s second half. Mid-record power-ballad The Last One Of Us kicks things off, dialling everything back slightly for an affecting showcase of the more tender side of Tremonti’s vocal abilities. Gradually ramping up as time goes on, the song of course culminates in a deliciously flashy guitar solo, but it’s one that feels completely fitting for the tone of the record so far. It’s joined by fellow lighters-in-the-air moments Under The Sun, and most effectively, Not Afraid To Lose which triumphantly rattles along in a manner akin to many of ALTER BRIDGE’s slower moments (at one point breaking down into a lick that’s double-take-inducingly similar to Blackbird). This one easily serves at the record’s best slower moment thanks to a powerful and impassioned vocal delivery.

Perhaps the record’s sole more progressively-leaning moment comes with its final moments in the form of closer and title-track Marching In Time. Clocking in at some seven and a half minutes and essentially a song of several distinct sections, this number sees TREMONTI getting the closest to A Dying Machine’s more expansive leanings. It alternates stylistically between heartfelt ballad and uplifting rock anthem, and indeed excels at both, with beautifully foreboding clean guitar tones in the softer sections suddenly punctuated by the repeated bursts of heaviness containing one of the album’s most uplifting choruses. Is it maybe a touch over-indulgent as a closer with the record already within touching distance of an hour by this point? Well, yes, but barring the closing two minutes of typically flashy soloing, there’s not really much you’d probably want to trim down, and the sheer emotion packed into the song’s different movements is enough to carry it through as a solid conclusion.

That Marching In Time is another great record in Mark Tremonti’s back catalogue really shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone familiar with his work. What might shock however, is that in shedding the wholly conceptual skin of its predecessor in favour of generally more individualised songwriting, Marching In Time succeeds arguably even more than both A Dying Machine and perhaps the rest of the TREMONTI catalogue in producing some of the very best songs that the guitarist has released as a solo artist to date. Barely a moment is wasted across the 12 songs on offer here, and the array of brilliant musical moves, both anthemic and heavy, across the hour or so you’ll spend in this album’s company are sure to both further delight existing fans and draw curious new listeners in within just a few listens.

Rating: 8/10

Marching In Time is set for release on September 24th via Napalm Records.

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