And so we begin and let’s start with a big hitter. Alter Bridge have established themselves over the last decade as an arena bothering and festival-topping Behemoth. They manage to faultlessly combine slick heavy rock with a harder, crunching underbelly. “Pawn & Kings” doesn’t see them deviate in any way from the formula that has taken them to the top. There is plenty of pulsating guitar histrionics from Mark Tremonti and lots of vocal dexterity from Myles Kennedy. It might lack the stand-out numbers of previous records (hence its position at the very cusp of the list) but it’s still a solid release.