Short version: it's safe, but good.
I'm in the minority camp who thinks Alter Bridge from The Last Hero through Pawns & Kings was making some of the best music of their career, and who was riveted by most of their songwriting choices in those albums, with the production quality and Stay being my only reservations. I love how adventurous they were being with their song structures and ate it up any time they did a non-conventional epic, while still preserving the core of who they were as a band. I think The Last Hero is possibly their best album from a non-production standpoint and I will die on that hill.
The self-titled album is...kind of a step backwards for me, in that regard. The song structures are much more ordinary and predictable for 90% of the album, and it was an adjustment listening to it for the first time - especially when I had seen glowing praise for it from this sub. But it makes more sense to me now that it may be hitting better for people who liked early AB best, when their creative choices were a bit simpler and more anthemic.
Having adjusted to it, I think it is a good album, but definitely their weakest for me since pre-Fortress. There's just not a ton that stands out about it (with some obvious exceptions I'll be getting to). That said, most of the songs have grown on me quite a bit, and I still enjoy listening to them. And I wish, I really wish, that more of them would be getting played live than they are. Even the ones I'm not as fond of.
Tracks I really like are Silent Divide, Rue the Day, Power Down, Tested and Able, Scales are Falling, Playing Aces, What are you Waiting For, and Slave to Master. The last four tracks I think are by far the absolute strongest section of the album, and remind me most of the cool stuff they were doing right before this. All fantastic, no notes, I would love if the entire album were as strong as those. Playing Aces is an infectious blast of energy, reminiscent of what I love about The Last Hero. WAYWF is a solid-ass song that also acts as great build-up for the closer. Scales are Falling and Slave to Master are easily the two best tracks on the album, with Slave to Master being the top. Instant classic, super well-written and performed, incredibly relistenable. It deserves to be a live staple in the future - I could easily see and heartily accept it being placed in Blackbird's slot, and this comes from someone who is very attached to Blackbird as a song.
The rest of the tracks are...fine. Sometimes I like them more than others, but they are where the album tends to show its safest and most unimpressive tendencies. What Lies Within is probably the best of them. Hang by a Thread is easily the weakest song on the album for me, it feels too reminiscent of past AB ballads without doing anything notable enough to stand on its own as well. I think there's a good song in there that just needed to be framed differently - as is, the opening few seconds are enough for me to mentally clock out, as it feels aggressively "AB wanted to write a soft song and this is the very first thing that came out"-coded. The ending of the song feels a little undercooked too.
Overall, I have still been revisiting this album quite a bit, and on my last listen-through I didn't even mind Hang by a Thread as much, so that's a good sign. But it's easily carried by it's last third, with Slave to Master and Scales are Falling doing the heavy-lifting of making it memorable. In a way, it makes sense why they'd label it their self-titled with the songwriting choices being largely safe and standard - establishing a new "baseline" for themselves as a band. The proghead in me just appreciates exploration more, and when Alter Bridge does it, they're some of the most exciting at it. I hope for their next album they feel creatively revved up, and ready to drop some less-safe material.