Marching In time means to follow or maintain the proper rhythm of someone or something else while marching. I’m going to get a little philosophical in this review, so hold onto your guitar picks!

We’re not going to discuss how Mark Tremonti came onto the scene with the success of his first band, Creed, and we’re not going to discuss his imperative work with Alter Bridge, or how he was a founding member of both bands and won a Grammy award for Creed’s single “With Arms Wide Open.”

We aren’t even going to discuss how Tremonti and Myles Kennedy’s guitar solo in “Blackbird” was voted the best guitar solo of all time by Guitarist Magazine in 2011, or how Tremonti was named Guitarist of the Year for three years by Guitar World. Shoot, he was even listed in Guitar Magazine as the fourth greatest heavy metal guitarists of all time, but once again we’re not talking about that. 

We’re going to talk about a changed world, and the entire band who decided to write an outstanding album telling tales about these times.

The band Tremonti got their start as Mark Tremonti’s idea for a solo album. The first release was All I Was in July 2012. Their second album, Cauterize, was released in June 2015, followed by Dust in April 2016 and A Dying Machine in June 2018. Marching In Time was released September 24th via Napalm Records. 

First of all, you simply must put this album on, turn it up loud and sit there to experience the full range of the ride it will take you through. Don’t try to figure out this album at first per say, but let yourself feel it instead. 

The scope of this album is so intense! The low tunes rock and the bass lines by Tanner Keegan are kicking. The drumming by Ryan Bennett throughout this entire album is a phenomenal level of something spectacular to be admired. Tremonti’svocals are a surprise to anyone who hasn’t heard him sing before: clean, clear and just lovely. 

The album opens like a gong, ringing in your attention that the time has come and this band has something to say. 

The live video of “A World Away” slow-burns you into the drive. However, on the album, it slaps you right across the face from the first drum beat that builds like fireworks into its long and heavy metal riff. 

As Tremonti sings the lyrics (backed up by Eric Friedman, who deserves a nod for his work on backup vocals), “But I’m still trying to believe (Erock screams “believe” with passion and the perfect intensity to match Tremonti’s vocals here)…”I swear that I will leave today; another life a world away. I’ve never felt an ounce of love. It’s not my home and it never was.” 

It strikes me like an emotional chord that my own interpretation of the lyrics here speak to the disbelief that the life of someone unknown to us in another country could mean so little to so many and be a source of so much hatred and prejudice among the outbreak of covid19 into our world. This song could be talking about the death of the soul of humanity. 

It’s amazing what people see in their interpretations of music.

It’s also amazing how someone else’s problem isn’t really our problem until it is. That is one of the many lessons I’ve personally learned about others from this outbreak. Covid has definitely shown how, like it or not, we are all connected. We need to support and love one another to survive a drastically changed world.

When I first heard the single-track “Marching In Time,” there was an immediate need to play it a dozen more times. Though last on the album, standing out as the North Star song, (In my opinion), I’m going to write about it next. 

A friend pointed out the polyrhythm is two against three which portrays a loss of control, yet enough control within the song itself is grounding so that you are able to essentially “march in time”. 

With lyrics that state “don’t ever go astray” it’s like finding the control within the spiral of chaos that is time to hold on to hope.

This song is revolutionary; a battle for the innocence of a child as he grows. Tremonti pleads with his child “take your life and go and thrive”. By “Marching In Time”, you continue to live and thus experience the spiral that teaches us and helps us grow as human beings. 

Perhaps control is the illusion of chaos, and the path leads us through that chaotic time where something has entered our world that has permanently changed all our futures. 

Coming around in the spiral that is time, don’t lose control of the loss of your control. Keep your heart open, and hold on to hope. Know that control lies within the chaos of the beat of life. 

Through this knowledge, we can use hope to heal the wounds inflicted by time, and march through it into the new dawn that is this new beginning. A point of the spiral of peace can once again be born. 

The two against three polyrhythm presented throughout the entire song compliments the irony of the lyrics to “March in Time.” Mark Tremonti’s style in writing represents that slight loss of control, but still lends a marching rhythm that the listener can grasp onto (and even headbang to), creating an oxymoron experience which highlights the entire point of the song within itself. A point that says to me: hope is found within the darkest depths of chaos along the spiral of time. This spiral is our life. 

The polyrhythm could almost be seen as a discreet baseline that the song is making about time itself. Truly this only further proves the genius of Tremonti’s crafts and creativity. He and the band’s music are like an onion of layers among layers. Though the lyrics are also tender, empowering, sweet and full of endless love for his child, this isn’t some simple lullaby. Yet it’s done with a bold humility only Tremonti could deliver.

So these are stories. But what is each story telling? I guess it’s up to interpretation, like I decided to do on a few of the songs, but in all honesty, this entire album stands out. It’s a stunning work of art. I also found this album to be very universal. I shared the music videos already out with my 15 year old teenager, my mother and many friends of different ages and walks of life. All had something positive or insightful to say. 

This album put me in a deeply contemplative mood. What if every song that’s ever been written was already written from the beginning of time and was just waiting for musicians to come along in this lifetime as the form of energy and light they are to pluck it from the universe?

Music, and musicians, are our poets and artists who save lives and tell stories the world needs to hear, and this album profoundly reflects the medicine through music that our musicians put into the world. The band isn’t just telling different stories about a year in a world of Covid, but are expressing the cavernous depths of humanity and making a point through their music and lyrics. 

Not to also point out that of all the themes or inspiration to invent new music, Tremonti chose to create an album that makes a difference in people’s lives through their own interpretations and understanding of the messages given in the songs.

Maybe everything musicians create, write and compose all existed already in a quiet universe, waiting to be discovered. They exist now in the current, and will always exist because time is not linear; it is a spiral. Nothing can ever be lost and everything can be found. 

Moving on, “Now And Forever” begins with a grinding solo that blooms into a song of loss of hope that quickly turns into an ironically musically upbeat tale of being unsure within yourself and on the last edge of your fragility. 

“If Not For You” seems to open to me with a feel of abandonment; a heavy grief with a guitar solo that mourns for a better place. How Tremonti makes his guitar sound like symphonic metal is pure magic in this song. The melodic aspects to this album really shine on this song. Beautiful solos that compliment the idea behind the lyrics in how the first holds on and lingers; roaring back at the end of the song to die in faded glory are ostensible in their rendition. 

“Thrown Further” introduces you with a solo reminiscent of a 90’s hook, while simultaneously staying true to the heavy and big guitar sounds featured with the other slamming instrumentals throughout this album. 

“Let That Be Us” is a pounding rapid-fire song, while “The Last One Of Us” and “Under The Sun” take things down to a slighter slower tempo with a desperation pleading in the lyrics and sounds for the redemption of love; the song “In One Piece” having took it back up into thrash metal territory. Don’t get me wrong; Tremonti didn’t take down the tempo into slow dance mode; the entire album stays true to metal. “Bleak” and “Would You Kill” hold true to that metal of the album, while the song “Not Afraid To Lose” comes as the most pleasant surprise the album has to give. 

Immediately grabbing your attention with emotional, melodic music and poignant, inspiring and heart moving lyrics. Deep, insightful and empowering, this could easily be the most underrated song on the album, and despite the time I spent going into depth on “Marching In Time,” this song is my personal favorite. 

While some of the heaviness of the album is comparable to the brilliance of Slipknot, this song reminds me a bit of Lifehouse meets Shinedown laced with melody, more intense riffs and a dash of power-ballad. This song is a sublime work of emotional genius. There’s a very subtle 90’s and early 2000’s subtext to this song that I love, as well. 

In closing, Tremonti have outdone themselves on this incredible album, and it shows in every…single…riff. The amount of work, blood, sweat and tears that must have gone into this album I can’t even wrap my mind around. This is my favorite album so far this year. 

And so on the 8th day of creation, Tremonti rested, the instruments smoked their cigarettes, and it was good.

By I’m Music Magazine Contributing Writer Breezy Blake