Review Summary: Worst Lamb Of God release to date... Randy Blythe and Chris Adler are the only things that stand out, not a difficult task on a sub-par album.
Lamb of God is becoming a household name these days. Releasing modern classics such as "Now You've Got Something To Die For", "Walk With Me In Hell" and "Laid To Rest". In early 2009, the American Heavy Metal band released their latest work, Wrath. Easily the most overhyped album of 2009, it was as high as #2 on the billboard top 200 and sold 68,000 copies in the first week.
Lamb of God seemed to head in the wrong direction with this album. The album starts off with an overwhelmingly average instrumental called "The Passing". Simple harmonized leads and an acoustic mess doesn't mix well, especially for a band that focuses on intense, groove based riffs. One part for me that does stand out is the palm muted acoustic power chord and drum fill that starts at 0:28. Gag me, please. That sounds horrible. The only thing remotely good about this song is the transition from this song to the next, "In Your Words". ----- 1 / 5
The opening riff to "In Your Words" sound overwhelmingly familiar. Sounds like they took the riff from "Blackened" by Metallica (0:36) or the"Hordes Of Chaos" by Kreator (0:43) and simply made it faster and changed the fill to make it as groovy as possible. On the contrary, the riff does sound nice and compliments the only listenable track on the CD. Good, catchy chorus and pre-chorus... I actually like this song. Randy doesn't sound incredible, however. And neither does the outro to this song, sounds rather boring and annoying. ----- 4 / 5
Set to Fail. Being a grammy nominee and all, you would expect the song to be somewhat listenable, wouldn't you? Well... sadly. It's far from being listenable. Most of the riffs run together and sound like nothing new. ----- 2 / 5
Contractor begins with one of the most annoying yells. Then out of nowhere you have a fast, palm muted riff and a simple beat from Chris Adler. *Yawn*. Boring. Nothing new. Middle of the song contains a short bass break and then a slow riff that sounds like it was just thrown in there for the hell of it. Kicks back up with yet another simple riff and simple drum beat. The song ends with a guitar fading out on a random note. Just plain stupid. ----- 2 / 5
Yet again, we have a boring intro. Sounds stupid. The follow up riff sounds overwhelmigly detuned and boring. Doesn't fit the vocals at any points. Also sounds like the guitar strings were too loose for the tuning. Thus adding to the annoying effect already set in place by this headache of a song. ----- 2 / 5
And now we have "Grace". Well, it starts out with a rather nice clean part. Any good feelings set in place by this wonderful clean part is deminished by a random, fast paced, intense riff. Good drum beat, good riff... but doesn't fit the clean part at all. Gets really catchy at about 1 minute in. One of the few highlights on this album. The solo at 2 minutes 40 seconds is rather nice. Some very good melody and skill is shown during the solo. ----- 3 / 5
Broken Hands begins with a very annoying vocal outburts from Randy. After that it sounds pretty good and the vocal approach from Randy fits very nicely. Reminds me of Walk With Me In Hell. The following riffs aren't so nice. After hearing the intro I was expecting much more than what I got. The solo on this song is absolutely terrible. Shows no good qualities at all and anything that could have been built off it is cut short by Randy and another random riff. The only good parts of this song are the parts that sound like 0:02 - 0:22 ----- 2 / 5
Dead Seeds is another annoying song from a rather annoying album. The parts after the intro sound almost so techincal that they're random. The bends in the intro riff are very annoying. On the flipside, Chris does keep a nice beat during this song and Randy gives a good performance as he usually does. Other than that, this song has nothing to gain. ----- 2 / 5
After Dead Seeds, this album was beginning to look rather tedious. Everything To Nothing, however, did bring up the mood of the CD a little bit. This song gains from what the other songs lack, a decent level of intensity without seeming over the top. The solo is nothing to be impressed about, but the song is enough to get the fingers tapping... something this album has been lacking. ----- 4 / 5
Choke Sermon uses the same formula that the rest of the songs used. It's random, has the same basic beat throughout the song. It's just a boring, heap of junk like the rest of most of this album. ----- 2 / 5
Reclamation has to be the lowest 7 minutes of the album. The acoustic intro is long, boring, and sounds like something you would hear composed by a bunch of southern hillbillies. The song kicks in with a simple beat, not even worthy enough for a little air drumming. The song also contains a few random clean interludes, using the hillbilly riff from the intro. Then kicks in with some more boring crap. Can't really say much about this. It's far from a stellar ending to a far from stellar album. It's 7 minutes of sololess crap, using the same repitition technique used by the rest of the songs. ----- 1 / 5
This album should be one to forget about if you're Lamb of God. Even Fireflies by Owl City is more tolerable than some of the songs on this album. Here's a good tip for Lamb of God fans, stick with Sacrament, Ashes of the Wake and As The Palaces Burn. This album is nothing to cream your pants over.
