ALTER
self-titled (self-released)
Reviewed by Erick Mertz

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New music sometimes has a way of finding you.

Three thousand miles from home, under the sweltering Georgia summer sun someone might just offer you an album that knocks your socks off. The best advice a music reviewer can sometimes heed is to hold his plate of barbecue - however heavy - with one hand, keeping the other free to accept whatever disc might float across the deck.

What Alter brings to the fray that few of its contemporaries do is a cohesive, melodic feeling to hard rock music. Each song is finely crafted, knitting together in well rehearsed concert. "Breakaway" threatens to do just that. It is a galloping chariot of tightly reined horses. Like a Bruce Lee drop kick to the chops "Give In" doesn't beg - it commands attention. When the last song "Run" chimes it, it sets to cool sway, resurrecting the art of the power ballad. It isn't only symphonic and swooning, it's thunderously heart rendering.

The short representation of Alter's music is enough to discover a band with a tightly unified sound. This is certainly a rarity. The sound isn't complete - there is much more, with these only scratching a vastly fruitful sonic surface.

[Pick this up at artists.mp3s.com.]

© 2003 - Erick Mertz