Lamb of God
“As The Palaces Burn”
(Prosthetic)
Intense metallic hardcore metal. Songs are stapled together by the down stroke and the seam is stressed by spinal guitars that continuously poke their heads through the fresh wound. When it slows, it takes on that off-time chunk that Meshuggah has perfected.
Its thrash metal kicked up a notch and slapped with a bruised eye and a throat-full of growl.
Vocalist Randy Blythe has but one growl, and it’s a good one, but it forces the rest of the music to provide the dynamics. When Blythe does take a change on giving some else vocally (see the grumble of words on the passage in “Blood Junkie”) the end result is favorable.
But the best trick here is the guitars. Lots of attention paid to not only song construction, but the tones of the guitars on certain sections have been goosed up or stripped down. The triplets stripped against a single note whine in the breakdown of ’11th Hour’ is surgically precise.
And call me old school and steal my lunch money, but Lamb of God crunch it up with a straight ahead thrash style in “Boot Scraper”. I can feel the patches on my jean jacket vest tighten their stitching in respect.
