Year: 2020
Total Time: 44:42
Label: Nuclear Blast
LAMB OF GOD does not need any special introduction as it is considered as one of the biggest bands in Heavy metal music, at the time speaking. The band that, twenty years ago, brought the term “New Wave Of American Heavy Metal”, continues till this day to release record works full of adrenaline, destroying everything in its live performances. With this adrenaline LOG come to “fill” us this year, after an absence of five years, with their self-titled new album. The controversial previous album of 2015 “VII: Sturm und Drang”, without being bad, divided the fans, while the EP “The Duke” that followed a year later was quite mediocre. Then, the departure of Chris Adler may have troubled the band’s fans, but his great replacement with Art Cruz and the new dynamite album are here to show us that LAMB OF GOD will remain at the top!
The album captures you directly from the throat with the first note of “Memento Mori”, which is also the opening song, including the familiar LOG’s thrash-y groove sound. A composition that, in case it will be added at their live performances, the walls of each gig’s venue will reign in blood! “Checkmate” and “Gears” that follow, show us the influences by the mighty PANTERA. We go on with “Reality Bath”, “New Colossal Hate” and “Resurrection Man” which take us on a journey through the two previous awesome LOG records, “Sacrament” and “Wrath” as the songs could have been written then.
Similarly with 2015’s “VII: Sturm und Drang”, LOG have invited here some of our very favorite musicians. HATEBREED’s singer Jamey Jasta participates in the groove thunder “Poison Dream” while the legendary Chuck Billy of TESTAMENT flows in the Thrash orgasm “Routes”. The album closes with “Bloodshot Eyes”, in which Art Cruz shows his talent and Randy Blythe experiments with clear vocals and melodies at the best song of the album entitled “On The Hook” (with the energy of “Ashes Of The Wake” spread throughout the entire song).
The album is a continuous “metal attack” on the listener, offering exactly what we want to hear from this great band. LOG puts aside all the experiments of the previous work and presents us an album with great energy and compositions, that take us fifteen years back. Randall “Randy” Blythe sounds angrier than ever, guitarists Mark Morton and Willie Adler shoots riffs one after the other, and the bassist John Campbel with the drummer Art Cruz build a rhythm section ready to demolish the walls of Babylon! The new album unites the “old” with the “new” LAMB OF GOD and offers us a great quality of American extreme metal!
Rating: 7.5/10
Editor: Nikos Manousis
Related Link: LAMB OF GOD – Official Page
