Lamb of God – Lamb of God

Label: Nuclear Blast   Playing Time: 45 Min   Release: 19th June 2020

Shame on me! I have been listening to Heavy Metal since the end of the last millennium, almost as long as Lamb of God have been making music (not counting the days when they called themselves Burn The Priest). But the self-titled 8th studio album of the band is the first one I am listening to in its entirety.

It begins with ‘Momento Mori’, a song that simply blows me away! The intro is quite calm,clean guitars and spoken words only . Then with the words “Wake Up!” everything explodes. What a contrast, what an impressive beginning! The song culminates in a simple but effective chorus. I realize quickly what’s the strength of Lab of God: they take no prisoners with their riff based Heavy Metal, which sounds like a mixture of Thrash and Groove Metal. Fast, uncomplicated and simply in your face! And that’s also the recipe for the following songs like ‘Checkmate’, ‘Gears’ and ‘New Colossal Hate’. All in all six songs, that hit the bullseye! Only ‘Resurrection man’ and ‘Routes’ do not work so well. The final two songs are great again.

Since today, Lamb of God belong to the bands that I will have a look at in the future. But for me, there are two elements missing in the sound of the Richmond five, two elements that would bring it to a new level. 1^st calm parts: The opener and ‘Bloodshot Eyes’ show the potential of contrasts very well. Why not using this feature more often? 2^ndmelodies: The band play with two guitars, but mostly both play the same riff. Why not using the second guitar for melodic leads sometimes? It would add color to the songs and make them catchier.

www.lamb-of-god.com