Tremonti - Cauterize Album Review

Mark Tremonti is the guitarist of modern legend. In the UK he is the 'Riffmaster General', in Germany, 'The Riff-meister,', and in Latin he is 'Riffus Dominus.' I’m not making this shit up. Anyway, I digress….

Tremonti began writing in his Orlando studio in early 2014. Joined by his band, Tremonti penned more than twenty-five songs over the course of multiple sessions. “We wanted to do a ton of songs,” he affirms. “I decided to take my entire catalog of material, get everything out, and purge it. On ‘All I Was’, we couldn’t spend as much time on pre-production. This time, we were able to take the time to tear the songs apart and put them back together so they could become as dynamic as possible. That helped make the new music what it is.”

Emerging from the most prolific period of his two-decade career, Tremonti is actually delivering two successive albums - ’Cauterize’ and follow-up companion album ‘Dust’. With ‘Cauterize’ leading the charge in June 2015 and ‘Dust’ to follow in the not-too-distant future, it’s a one-two punch of modern thrash and melody that has become the group’s signature. Think riffage of gargantuan proportions. Tremonti allows, er, Tremonti to play all the mental stuff he has NEVER done with Creed, and only scratched the surface with in Alter Bridge. Take, for example, opening track ‘Radical Change’, it’s an absolute onslaught of bass, guitar and drums, that will leave you gasping for breath. It’s a song about feeling the weight of the world on your shoulders, something a lot of us can bear testament to. ‘Flying Monkeys’ I’m hoping is influenced by one of my childhood fave movies, The Wizard Of Oz, and it has this low down chugging drawl of a start, dirty and yet with a catchy refrain. Cauterize is a is the burning of part of a body to remove or close off a part of it in a process called cautery, which destroys some tissue (in this case its definitely my ears) in an attempt to mitigate bleeding and damage, so at least the good Doctor knows what he is doing to our bodies in listening to this.

After the collective battering so far, and up to ‘Arm Yourself’ you’re almost praying for mercy. Either that, or a nice ballad! ‘Dark Trip’ is about as light as it gets on the Tremonti scale of balladry. Journey it definitely aint, but it’s a break in proceedings all the same. ‘Another Heart’ is as close as we get to Alter Bridge, more melodic than the rest on offer, such is the case I half expect Kennedy to wade in with the vocals. ‘Sympathy’ if it were on the telly (when MYV used to shoe music videos) a few years back, would be abso-fucking–lutely HUGE. It’s an anthem of stadium size proportions and is my favourite track by far.

Tremonti has a knack for coming up with blistering riffs. Not only that, on from All I Was, his vocals have gone up a notch also. If he doesn’t watch it, sometime soon, he may have to decide if he can keep both Alter Bridge and Tremonti on an even keel, as Tremonti has all the right elements to take them higher, much higher.

I fall into 3 canmps with Mark Tremonti. I couldn’t really abide Creed. I adore Alter Bridge with a passion, and Tremonti (the band) is growing on me with every listen. I liked ‘All I Was’, but with ‘Cauterize’, they have taken it up a notch or three in quality, I think that’s purely down to that fact that they have taken more time with this opus

‘Brutal riffs with a melodic lilt’. That’s how I best describe ‘Cauterize’. Fans of the man, and band will be lapping this up like a metal lovin’ kitten in catnip scented pyjamas. Essential metal listening for 2015

Score 90/100

Tremonti are

Mark Tremonti – Vocals, Guitars

Eric Friedman – Guitar

Garrett Whitlock – Drums

Wolfgang VH – Bass

Michael ‘Elvis’ Baskette – Producer (and fifth member od Tremonti!)

Tracklisting

Radical Change

Flying Monkeys

Cauterize

Arm Yourself

Dark Trip

Another Heart

Fall Again

Tie The Noose

Sympathy

Providence