Lamb of God – Sacrament

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impulse buy

Columbia Records
Produced by Machine

It’s only been two years since Richmond’s Lamb of God released their last album, and there’s been a DVD in between as well, but already fans are desperate for more. The sign of a good band? Not always, but in this case, most definitely.

Where some have complained before that singer Randy Blythe’s vocals have sounded a little thin on previous albums, including the highly acclaimed last album Ashes of The Wake, that accusation cannot be leveled at his performance on Sacrament. It is in fact for this reason that I’ve not liked Lamb of God before. But the music is now arguably even more technical, the solos are positively face-melting and the vocals are about as perfect as extreme vocals can get; brutal but intelligible. This is easily their best yet.

On a musical level the riffs and solos produced by Lamb of God on this outing are second to none in modern metal. The benefit they have is that they’re not afraid to allow their traditional metal tendencies to influence their sound, meaning their songs never suffer from the tedium that can often set in on some more “contemporary” modern metal. Take opener Walk With Me In Hell, for example. It starts with some wonderfully smooth lead guitar, before a complex and crushing riff and Blythe’s Jesse-Leach-meets-Mikael-Åkerfeldt vocals come through clear as a bell.

If all extreme metal sounded like this record, it wouldn’t be extreme, because there would always be something for fans of every kind of metal to get into. I would go as far as to say the solos on this album are the best I’ve heard on any album all year, regardless of style. These are classic solos that are expressionate instead of focused purely on speed.

The anthemic Again We Rise, with it’s ominous lead intro (similar in many respects to Opeth, especially when the riffs comes in, but with a chorus and spoken refrain reminiscent of Pantera – a comparison that also applies to the guitar parts on Pathetic) and venomous first single Redneck complete the opening barrage in fine form and I foresee all three becoming live favourites after the tour with Slayer, In Flames and Children of Bodom.

The strength of the album as a whole is boosted by the exquisite clarity of the production, courtesy of Machine (who also produced Ashes of The Wake), meaning not only are the guitar and vocals clear, but the precise snap of the drums makes even the fastest fills sound like the defined set of beats that they are and not a rolling mess like, say, the occasional Slayer song can suffer from.

The only thing that loses this album a point is that the pace doesn’t vary much, so while the riffs and solos remain interesting enough for the duration, the rhythms and overall speed of the songs doesn’t. A couple of mid-paced stompers might have served well to break up the fast tracks, but this is a minor problem with what is otherwise an excellent example of how extreme metal should be made in the 21st Century.

“ their best yet ”

Tracklist: Walk With Me In Hell / Again We Rise / Redneck / Pathetic / Foot To The Throat / Descending / Black The Cursed Sun / Forgotten (Lost Angels) / Requiem / More Time To Kill / Beating On Death’s Door
Bonus DVD: Redneck – video / The Making of the Redneck Video / The Making of Sacrament

Written by Andy Lye
More: Albums, Heavy Metal (Extreme Vocals), Lamb of God