Forgive Them, Father

Oh man! Where to begin with Lamb of God? They are a regular pack of Virginian enigmas.

The quintet certainly rode the metalcore wave straight to their current position as one of the most popular and profitable bands in American heavy music. But they also managed to stand out from the crowd by embracing Floridian death metal and the cocksure southern swagger of Pantera. After caving to pressure and changing their name, putting out a stellar LP in Ashes of the Wake, accidentally killing some European teenager during a concert in Prague and navigating a brief period during which they literally thought they were Pantera–seriously, just listen to Sacrament­–Lamb of God more or less settled into a groove that holds strong to this day.

Or at least they had until their recent release of The Duke EP. While the record contains only two new tracks, they are more than enough to gauge the direction in which Lamb of God are allowing themselves to drift. For starters, listeners are almost immediately treated to a hugely overproduced chorus, complete with clean singing and innumerable vocal layers. How long has this been going on? How long has Lamb of God featured clean singing? Most attentive metalheads can clearly recall a time when the Adler brothers would never have dared to seriously approach such strikingly sanitized vocals for fear of critical backlash. And yet, here we all are, listening to Randy Blythe moan like Chino Moreno that “[he is] the smoke on the wind.” And even though he is clearly the same frontman that we have come to know so well over the years, listening to “The Duke” feels as if we are enduring some prick’s desire to hog the spotlight and croon over Randy Blythe’s steadfast, gravelly shouts–which are mixed way too loud. Hopefully “The Duke” ends up being no more than a fluke.

“Culling” falls much more within Lamb of God’s comfort zone, dishing out that ol’ grooving thrash with a healthy dose of pinch harmonics and lightning-quick double kick patterns. Blythe is still as outraged as ever, railing against ignorant rednecks (“out in the heartlands a smoking wreck / of ill-raised children and lost respect) and those ignorant to the perpetration of global atrocities (“I couldn’t make this shit up”). As is the case with many metal lyricists that thrived at the turn of the century–the most obvious example being Ministry’s Al Jourgenson–it is hard not to notice that Blythe’s lyrics seem to have grown…well, a bit less pointed and specific ever since G.W. left office. Yet while Blythe may have lost his muse, the guitar duo of Morton and Adler show absolutely no signs of old age; their fingers fly at insane speeds during the live recordings that fill out the back end of the EP.  For example, “Engage the Fear Machine” features some breakneck guitar riffage, which was dubiously alleged to be recorded live at Bonnaroo despite some suspiciously pristine sound engineering. Did they pull a KISS and overdub it all or did they simply kill it live? Only Lamb of God and the ‘Roo audience know the answer to that question.

Though they have suffered some pretty significant falters, the reason that Lamb of God outlived their oft-derided metalcore contemporaries is very much on display in The Duke. They’ve got chops, ferocity and one of the most creative drummers in straight ahead metal. Hopefully they’ll come to their senses and abandon the melodic vocals.