Gee, Think Mark Tremonti Has Been Listening to a Lot of Gojira Lately?

Everyone knows that Mark Tremonti is the one cool guy in the abomination to mankind known as Creed, right? We kinda already had an inkling — all his non-Creed output has been really solid, and he’s obviously a very skilled guitar player — but he sealed the deal last year when he revealed that he’s a huge fan of Gojira, black metal and (duh) Slayer.

So: peep this new jam “Another Heart” from his new solo album Cauterize under the Tremonti moniker. That opening riff: holy Gojira, batman! Those pick scrapes! It’s almost as if Tremonti was cranking L’Enfant Sauvage opener “Explosia” when he wrote it and said to himself, “Hmm, how can I change this riff up just a little bit?” Normally I might take offense to such a blatant borrow, but since it’s Tremonti, and I know he’s sincere, I’ll give him a pass. Plus there are millions of sad-sack Creed fans who desperately need this kind of rocking, and if even just ONE of them is turned on to Gojira from this song it’ll all be worth it. After said riff things quickly take a turn towards more of what you’d expect from Tremonti, but the track still rocks, and the middle breakdown/solo section is hella heavy too. Creed butt-rock, this is not.

Cauterize comes out on June 9th.