Alter Bridge announce new album, Pawns & Kings, premiere hard-hitting title track

Myles Kennedy and Mark Tremonti have kept plenty busy over the last year or so.

Kennedy released his stellar second solo album, The Ides of March, in 2021, and unleashed his latest LP with Slash and the Conspirators, 4, earlier this year. Tremonti, meanwhile, released Marching in Time – the fifth full-length he's made with his solo band, Tremonti – in late 2021, and followed it up earlier this year with a Frank Sinatra covers album in support of the National Down Syndrome Society.

Now though, Kennedy and Tremonti – plus bass guitar player Brian Marshall and drummer Scott Phillips – have teamed back up for a new Alter Bridge album called Pawns & Kings. The band's seventh album, Pawns & Kings was helmed by longtime collaborator/producer Michael “Elvis” Baskette, and is set for an October 14 release via Napalm Records.

You can check out the lyric video for its lead single and title track below.

In an interview with My Planet Rocks earlier this month, Tremonti said that the then-unannounced new Alter Bridge album would feature some rather "heavy riffs," and the record's title track certainly delivers on that promise.

Clocking in at over six minutes, Pawns & Kings shows the band's mastery of dynamics, rising from a subdued intro to galloping verses, while touching on thrash in its middle. Best of all, it's highlighted with some truly epic call-and-response solos.

We'd usually credit those to Tremonti by default, but in that same My Planet Rocks interview, the guitarist also said that he and Kennedy swapped their usual roles more regularly while recording Pawns & Kings, with the former handling more vocals, and the latter taking on more lead electric guitar work. 

Indeed, the album is set to feature a tune called Stay, a ballad that features Tremonti on vocals.

You can examine the cover art and track list of Pawns & Kings below. To preorder the album, visit Alter Bridge's website.

Alter Bridge – Pawns & Kings:

1. This Is War                                                            
2. Dead Among The Living
3. Silver Tongue
4. Sin After Sin
5. Stay
6. Holiday
7. Fable Of The Silent Son
8. Season Of Promise
9. Last Man Standing
10. Pawns & Kings