Not mellowing with age: Lamb Of God roar back to their best with a furious, cathartic echo of their younger selves.
Midway through Into Oblivion, on the track El Vacío, Randy Blythe asks a question. What, he wonders across two of its verses, would its subjects have made of all this?
One of its characters is legendary American writer and godfather of Gonzo journalism Hunter S. Thompson, the other is Randy’s old friend, the late Dave Brockie of GWAR. Both were men with a fundamental ability to butcher bullshit and bullshitters, to bullseye their point, whether that be with a razor-sharp pen (the former), or through OTT taking the piss that was, actually, much drier humour than the fake blood, giblets and cum he used to illustrate it (the latter).
Neither lived long enough to see the past decade. In the absence of their individually unique digests of life in 2026, on which they would have no end of fat to chew, Randy asks about his own ability to unpack and skewer the world around him, to connect with people feeling the same dismay. On Lamb Of God’s 10th album, he does it with an anger that’s as intelligent and thoughtful as it is feral and pumping with vitality.
Into Oblivion is probably the best thing the Virginia metallers have done in 10 years. It’s not a reinvention, but neither is it Lamb Of God making their album again. The whole thing boils with caustic energy, red in tooth and claw. The production is gritty, unvarnished, giving it a straining urgency and life, so that the riffs come like a boxer covered in sweat and blood. Randy himself, now 55, sounds filled with both the wisdom of age, and the 'fuck-you' spit and piss of a 20-year-old.
On the opening title-track and The Killing Floor, their mix of grooves and speed are more aggressive than in a long time. Sepsis and St. Catherine’s Wheel bleed with a darkness that gives an edge of threat and menace. Parasocial Christ, meanwhile, is a crusher that stands toe-to-toe with their finest moments.
The rage Randy reflects over all this is quite something. But it’s the frustrated, desperate rage of a man looking for kindness, for reason, for decency, an emotional burst-pipe, not the impotent anger of violence. He’s worried about the collapse of democracy, about war, about what billionaire survivalism means for relative have-nots once the elites fuck up the world so badly they need compounds and private armies for their own safety. He is snapped newsreader Howard Beale in cult ’70s sci-fi movie Network, sweaty, agitated, at the end of his rope, imploring his viewers to get mad, because they are human beings, and “my life has value”.
Even in the album’s moments of relative let-up – the picked verses of El Vacío, A Thousand Years, both of which take on a doomy, almost Alice In Chains-ish crawl – this energy, this fire under their arse, is still there. The band haven’t been mellowing lately, exactly, but they weren’t swinging with this much fight in them, either.
Lamb Of God have never made a stinker. But at this stage of the game, it’s a welcome thing to find them this re-sharpened, this up for it, this full of what made them one of the most important metal bands of the 21st century. They’re back to their old, younger selves again. And their best.
Verdict: 4/5
For fans of: Malevolence, Pantera, Sepultura
Into Oblivion is out now Century Media/Epic Records. Lamb Of God return to the UK this summer to headline Bloodstock.
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