Year Of The Tiger – Myles Kennedy

The real down side to Guns N’ Roses getting back together is that I’m now missing out on one of my favourite touring bands.

See I went all in for the sound of Myles fronting Slash featuring Myles Kennedy and The Conspirators. Despite the clunkiest band name in the business, I really loved that band.

And what was not to love? New record every couple of years. There was touring and festival shows for every record. The type of show where you’d get GNR classics and the best of the new material in an incendiary gig. All held at venues you could get into for less than a weeks wages. It was all win. Then the Ginger Growler had to go and have a change of heart.

Alter Bridge are Myles’ day job. They’re a damned fine band in their own right. However the deep classic rock roots he harked at with Slash are less bluesy and more enthralled to the Maiden end of the spectrum with AB. This is not a complaint. It is a point of difference which adds more shade to Myles pallet. Here he is out on his own. Under his own name and all acoustic.

Year Of The Tiger is so entrenched in the folk instrumentation and and classic sounds it keep threatening to turn into Battle Of Evermore from Led Zeppelin IV. It’s a slow ear worm of a tune that stays in the back of the mind until such a moment you need it. It would not sound out of place on any of his other bands records. It could be another lost quiet moment on Black Bird by Alter Bridge or sit comfortably five tracks in on World On Fire by Slash and The Clunkiest Band Name Band.

Myles has sung on so many records I’ve loved over the years it’s really nice to have one with his name over the door as it were.