Lamb of God - Lamb of God (2020)

Epic/Nuclear Blast Records, June 19, 2020

Tracklist

1. Memento Mori

2. Checkmate

3.Gears

4. Reality Bath

5. New Colossal Hate

6. Resurrection Man

7. Poison Dream
8. Routes
9. Bloodshot Eyes
10. On the Hook
11. Ghost Shaped People (bonus)

Whenever a band self-titles an upcoming project eight albums into their career, it can  be for any number of reasons. In Lamb of God's case, the title acts as a statement that this project is through and through, unmistakably a Lamb of God album. If you are a fan of the Richmond-based metal crew, you know what you are getting here, as Lamb of God doubles down on the elements that make them unique. However, one noticeable thing has changed - the lineup. New drummer Art Cruz appears on his first album with the band, replacing Chris Adler who left in 2019.  

Due to the release date getting pushed back to June, Lamb of God premiered several singles from the album ahead of its release. These early tracks range in quality from excellent to average. The first of these was "Checkmate", which is structurally and stylistically similar to "Ghost Walking" off the Resolution album.  It is pretty decent, but nothing remarkable. "Memento Mori" was the second single release, and as far as opening tracks go it's a perfect choice.   Reminiscent of the sound on VII: Sturm und Drang while sounding unique, "Memento Mori" incorporates rare clean vocals from Randy Blythe along with a moody atmosphere and a dynamic sound.  "New Colossal Hate" is a pretty standard Lamb of God song, and "Routes" was the fourth and final single to be released.  Inspired by Randy Blythe's trip to the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation during the NODAPL protests, "Routes" is one of the stronger songs on the album and features Testament vocalist Chuck Billy (who himself is Native American).  This track is relentless and thrashy yet melodic.  Along with "Poison Dream", which features Jamey Jasta, "Memento Mori" and "Routes" are the best songs on this self-titled effort.

Randy Blythe is a very intelligent man and this is clear in his writing.  The majority of the songs here are focused on a current societal issue and deal with it in a nuanced way. His lyricism is very strong whether he's discussing school shootings ("Reality Bath") the opioid crisis ("On the Hook") xenophobia ("New Colossal Hate") or the Dakota Access pipeline ("Routes"). On a local scale, "On the Hook" is especially relevant within the band's home state of Virginia.  The lyrics discuss the prevalent narcotic addiction and unemployment in the southwest area of the state (and Appalachia coal country in general) after the closure of the mines.  However, the heavy "Resurrection Man" seems a bit out of place topically, as it pays homage to the old Mercyful Fate song "Evil" and the lyrics are not as strong compared with the rest of the album.  

Overall, this is thoroughly a Lamb of God album that will satisfy all fans of the band.  That being said, this band has stronger albums in their discography.  It's not something I would consider their magnum opus or an album that breaks new ground, but it holds true to their Pure American Metal standard.   Lamb of God continues to consistently deliver quality, and this album receives a 7.5/10 rating. 

Hollow Front - Loose Threads (2020)

Independent release, June 19, 2020

Tracklist

1. Afflicted

2. Nameless

3. Loose Threads

4. Left Behind

5. Vagabond

6. Wishful Thinking

7. Falling Apart
8. P.A.N.I.C.
9. Ghosted
10. The Itch
11. Serendipity

Hollow Front is an independent Michigan-based metalcore band. Their debut full-length, Hollow Threads, is their first release in two years, following an EP called Still Life which was put out on local label Beckwith Records. This group plays a style of metalcore in the vein of bands like Invent Animate, Wage War or Fit For a King that occasionally veers into a heavier direction.  The atmospheric opener "Afflicted" belies Hollow Front's aggressive side, as this track is actually much more melodic than the rest of the album. "Afflicted" is a clear highlight which shows the band's strengths right away.  Also appearing early on, the title track follows a similar direction, again emphasizing guitarist Dakota Alvarez's clean vocals in the beginning before the heavy sections that come later.  Both of these tracks retain a nice back-and-forth dynamic between the cleans and Tyler Tate's harsh vocals.  Dakota Alvarez's vocals are underutilized in this album and I would have liked to hear more from him.  He's got a great voice and deserves to be prominent on more than just two out of eleven tracks.

The band shows a few different sides to their sound.  While the two most melodic tracks show up at the start of the album, the most aggressive ones appear towards the end.  Tracks nine and ten, "Ghosted" and "The Itch", are the heaviest songs.  Both are intense, breakdown-heavy and cross over into deathcore territory.   Elsewhere, Loose Threads has an inclination for incorporating keyboards into heavy tracks. "Nameless" and "Falling Apart" use a simple keyboard line for some contrast atop an aggressive sound with vocals that are predominantly screamed.  Here they seem to be going for a similar style as Make Them Suffer's "Widower", and it works for them.  "P.A.N.I.C." also has a brief quiet keyboard section in the middle. 

Loose Threads does show room for growth.  Tracks like "Left Behind" and "Wishful Thinking" are merely average and lack a strong hook or staying power apart from with an interesting guitar line in the opening.  The album's pacing could also be improved as we have a long stretch of similar sounding aggressive metalcore tracks following the first three tracks.  The tracklist is a bit unbalanced and seems to just get heavier and more aggressive as it goes along.  While their sound isn't particularly unique, this is not an issue for a group at such an early stage of their career.  Hollow Front is a promising young band with room to grow and further develop their own identity in the future.   For now, they have a solid debut album to their credit which gets a score of 7/10.

Haste the Day - Attack of the Wolf King (2010)

Solid State Records, June 29, 2010

Tracklist

1.Wake Up the Sun

2. Dog Like Vultures

3.The Quiet, Deadly Ticking

4. Travesty

5.Merit for Sadness

6.The Un-Manifest

7. The Place Where Most Deny
8. White As Snow
9. Crush Resistance
10. Walk With a Crooked Spin
11. My Name is Darkness

This entry is one in a series of ten-year retrospectives from my favorite albums of 2010.

There seems to be a theme of wolves within Christian metalcore, with bands such as Wolves at the Gate and To Speak of Wolves making their mark in the scene.  Before Wolves at the Gate released their debut album, there was Attack of the Wolf King, which I consider to be Haste the Day’s best and most engaging album by a wide margin.  The band has had some lineup changes over the years most notably with original harsh vocalist Jimmy Ryan leaving before Pressure the Hinges and returning after the band reunited.  The band has definitely made some catchy and memorable songs over the years like “Stitches”, “Chorus of Angels” and “When Everything Falls”, but the albums themselves tended to be follow a similar formula the whole way through.  Attack of the Wolf King, however, mixes different styles and moods showing different creative ideas and within the metalcore genre.

This album is not short of standout tracks.  “Travesty” has an upbeat chorus and sounds bright and uplifting, while “Crush Resistance” is aggressive and menacing.  Taking a slower approach but still heavily guitar driven is “White As Snow”.  This song follows an alternative metal style and is capped off with an excellent guitar riff that stands in place of a bridge.  As one would infer from the title and cover art, the lyrics are themed around sheep and wolves (and also include multiple references to jackals).  Stephen Keech's vocals also are much improved from his first album, particularly the lower range screaming.  

The songwriting is another strong point, as the songs use metaphors to tell a story and making good use of imagery.  Some of the songs are rather clear in terms of their message like "Travesty", which talks about grace, while others like "Walk With a Crooked Spine" are more ambiguous.  The sheep and wolf theme stays consistent throughout the album, and it's a nicely done concept record.  As a whole, Attack of the Wolf King is easily the most interesting and diverse album Haste the Day has released.  It earns a score of 8/10. 

My Top 25 Hard Rock and Metal Albums of 2019

Earlier in 2020, I finalized and published an in-depth list of my favorite metal and hard rock albums from that year.  I am uploading that Google Docs file to this blog as well, and may individually revisit some of these albums on my blog as the need arises.  The full ranking is below, and you can follow the link below for a detailed explanation of my choices.

The Full Breakdown

The Basic List:  

25. Insomnium - Heart Like a Grave (Oct 4) 7/10

24. Valis Ablaze - Render (Jul 19) 7/10

23. Downfall of Gaia - Ethic of Radical Finitude (Feb 8) 7/10

22. Gravemind - Conduit (Jul 19) 7.5/10

21. Mark Morton - Anesthetic (Mar 1) 7.5/10

20. Fever 333 - Strength in Numb333rs (Jan 11) 7.5/10

19. Palisades - Erase the Pain (Dec 28) 7.5/10

18. Wrvth - No Rising Sun (Aug 23) 7.5/10

17. Wolves at the Gate - Eclipse (Jul 26) 7.5/10

16. Lacuna Coil - Black Anima (Oct 11) 7.5/10

15.  La Dispute - Panorama (Mar 22) 8/10

14. Killswitch Engage - Atonement (Aug 16) 8/10

13. Jinjer - Macro (Oct 25) 8/10

12. Death Angel - Humanicide (May 31) 8/10

11. Dayseeker - Sleeptalk (Sep 27) 8/10

10.  Tool - Fear Inoculum (Aug 30) 8/10

9. Fire From the Gods - American Sun (Nov 1) 8/10

8. After the Burial - Evergreen (Apr 19) 8/10

7. Auras - Binary Garden (Jul 12) 8.5/10

6. Slipknot - We Are Not Your Kind (Aug 9) 8.5/10

5. Cult of Luna - A Dawn to Fear (Sep 20) 9/10

4. Fit For An Autopsy - The Sea of Tragic Beasts (Oct 25) 9/10

3. Thousand Below - Gone In Your Wake (Oct 4) 9/10

2. Unprocessed - Artificial Void (Aug 9) 9.5/10

1. Northlane - Alien (Aug 2) 10/10

Rosetta - A Determinism of Morality (2010)

Translation Loss Records, May 25, 2010

Tracklist

1. Ayil

2. Je N’en Connais Pas La Fin

3. Blue Day For Croatoa

4. Release

5. Resolve

6. Renew

7. A Determinism of Morality

This entry is one in a series of ten-year retrospectives from my favorite albums of 2010. Rosetta, a band whose lead vocalist is also a high school teacher, has described their music in a tongue-in-cheek way as “metal for astronauts”. Their brand of atmospheric and slow building sludge metal does have a floating, spacey feel to it and is for a patient listener. This album stays true to their sound and has plenty of ambience and atmospheric instrumentation. As solid of an album as A Determinism of Morality is, I do feel like they could have done a little more with it, as the song tempos and vocals are pretty repetitive with the clean singing underutilized. The percussion, ambience, and sludgy rhythms are the highlight of this album and really come to the forefront on track three, “Blue Day for Croatoa”, as the vocals are dialed back. “Release” is another track that stands out with some cleans and has a slower, crushing ending. 

Rosetta's 2010 release earns a score of 7/10, and is one that requires some time to absorb. "Release", "Je N’en Connais Pas La Fin", and "Blue Day For Croatoa" eventually stood out as the highlights. You have to pay close attention to the songs to detect the subtle nuances and eclecticism here as A Determinism of Morality isn’t a record that will catch on with the first listen. Rosetta may call themselves metal for astronauts, but you don’t need to be in the space program to find their music enjoyable.

Deftones - Diamond Eyes (2010)

Reprise Records, May 4, 2010

Tracklist

1. Diamond Eyes
2. Royal
3.CMND/CTRL
4. You've Seen the Butcher
5.Beauty School
6. Prince
7.Rocket Skates
8. Sextape
9. Risk
10. 976-EVIL
11.This Place is Death
12. Do You Believe (bonus track)
13. Ghosts (bonus track)

A favorite of critics and musicians alike, Deftones’ style of alternative metal takes the term influential to the next level. Like the album before it, Diamond Eyes is a study in the beauty of contrasts. Guitarist Stephen Carpenter's affinity for the Swedish technical metal titans Meshuggah has been well documented, as is vocalist Chino Moreno's appreciation of decidedly softer acts like Interpol and Depeche Mode. Deftones' guitar sound has also evolved over the years - initially they used six-string guitars on their first few albums, before incorporating seven strings and finally eight, as is heard on Diamond Eyes. The presence of Carpenter's pummeling 8-string riffs and Chino's dynamic vocal performance ensure that both influences are well represented here. The keyboard and DJ sounds from Frank Delgado along with the technical rhythm section of bassist Sergio Vega and drummer Abe Cunningham add further nuance to the band's sound.

The circumstances behind this album were very difficult ones, as Diamond Eyes was written while the band members were in the midst of a tragic situation with the loss of their founding bassist Chi in an auto accident. Part of the therapeutic process in the midst of these terrible circumstances was the direction Deftones took toward the tone of the album. Chino has stated that the band made a concerted effort to pour their energy and emotion into a new album that was more optimistic. The members of Deftones kept writing together and reworking the songs until they sounded perfect, and it shows. Also worth noting is that Chino's vocal performance on this album is far superior to their previous effort Saturday Night Wrist, an album he admits he dislikes because he sounded unconfident. Here he sounds much more in control, and fully centered on these songs. “Royal” is a nice showcase of his vocal strength as he switches effortlessly from soothing tenor vocals to screams that convey the ferocity of a cougar. In addition to the wide range of vocal styles, the structure of the album is also varied and set up very well. Two of the album's heaviest, most riff-centric cuts, "You've Seen the Butcher" and "Rocket Skates", are immediately followed up with the two softest, most serene tracks. "Beauty School" in particular is a song that really excels in the laid-back, ballad style. 

Diamond Eyes is a project I see as being the most essential record of the year. The dichotomy on this album had a major impact and influence, especially to the progressive metal and djent movement of the decade. While maybe not as influential as their 2000 landmark White Pony album, it at least comes close. Meshuggah is the group that is often viewed as starting that subgenre, but Deftones were the band that combined that riff style with a dynamic vocal style that made melody just as important to the songs. For these reasons, Diamond Eyes makes a strong case as the best album of 2010 and earns a score of 10/10.

Periphery - Periphery I (2010)

Sumerian Records, April 20, 2010

Tracklist

1. Insomnia
2. The Walk
3. Letter Experiment
4. Jetpacks Was Yes!
5. Light
6. All New Materials
7. Buttersnips
8. Icarus Lives!
9. Totla Mad
10. Ow My Feelings
11. Zyglrox
12. Racecar
13. Captain On/Eureka (bonus tracks on some versions)

This entry is one in a series of ten-year retrospectives on my favorite albums from the year 2010. Periphery's self-titled debut, while showing room for growth at the time, is technically impressive and provided a preview of what was to come. While one of their less cohesive albums overall, it showed the band's brilliance early on as the first full-length project from what would become a major metal band of the decade. Periphery has become one of the front-runners in the modern progressive metal or “djent” scene and their self-titled debut was the beginning of it all.

Guitarist Misha Mansoor had announced this long before it actually released. The album showed room for improvement which they would accomplish, as the overall songwriting structure and cohesion between vocalist Spencer Sotelo and the band's three guitarists would become stronger on subsequent albums like Juggernaut: Alpha/Omega and Periphery III: Select Difficulty. A couple of tracks here do meander a bit without really going anywhere, and you get the feeling that this album isn't quite as concise as it could have been, and a comparison of "Jetpacks is Yes" with "Priestess" indicates Periphery has made progress in writing ballads. However, it was clear early on that the band's skill was undeniable, and this is a very impressive progressive technical metal debut. It also displayed the band's sense of humor with the less-than-serious nature of the song titles. "The Walk", single "Icarus Lives", "All New Materials", "Letter Experiment" are some of the highlights on the album.

Periphery I is a rather lengthy introduction to the band, reaching 73 minutes across twelve tracks, including the progressive closer "Racecar" which is over fifteen minutes long. The rest of the songs each range from four to nearly seven minutes long. From the memorable polyrhythms on "The Walk" to the simultaneously melodic and technical "Icarus Lives", Periphery has much to offer the listener. If you like instrumental complexity or guitar skill then this is the album for you. It earns a score of 8/10.