Jan 192012
 

Almost six weeks ago, Lamb of God premiered the first track from their next album, Resolution, which will be released on January 24. At that time, they gave us a visually interesting lyric video for “Ghost  Walking”. About an hour ago, they released a second video for the same song. This one is an animated story set in some kind of apocalyptic future, with a protagonist who seems intent on preventing a catastrophe. If you’ve heard the song already, you can probably guess how that turns out.

This video is well-done, and I’m finding that the song is growing on me. You know you’re going to get some heavy-grooved riffs from this band, but what I’m appreciating even more are Randy Blythe’s vocals. They are . . . badass.

The animation was created by Moreframes Animation. Watch the video after the jump, and let us know what you think of it. Continue reading »

Dec 062011
 

As we reported yesterday, Lamb of God premiered the first track from their new album, Resolution, on Metal Sucks. Today, they’ve unveiled the official music video for the same song (“Ghost Walking”).

It’s one of those “lyric videos”, but with a creative visual twist. Gaze upon it after the jump.

Resolution will be released on Jan. 24 and is available for pre-order at this link. Continue reading »

Dec 052011
 

For those of you who subscribe to DECIBEL magazine or happened to see our post about DECIBEL’s “Best of 2011” list, you know that Lamb of God is on the cover, right above this headline: “INSIDE 2012’S BIGGEST METAL RECORD”. That’s a pretty big claim, especially since the album isn’t out yet — but it’s coming. And today, Metal Sucks premiered the first song from the album, “Ghost Walking”.

The long feature story in DECIBEL about the band and the making of the album (which is titled Resolution) includes this quote from Randy Blythe: “This is the first Lamb of God record that I actually like listening to.” Nick Green, who wrote the piece, calls it “the most diverse-sounding Lamb of God offering to date, mostly because guitarists Mark Morton and Willie Adler each contributed about half the songs, and there’s a wild contrast between their songwriting styles” — with Morton providing the more hook-driven, straightforward songs and Adler writing songs that sound like journeys (“the weird and unconventional stuff”, as Chris Adler puts it in the article).

Based on the article, it appears the album will include “true bookends and an instrumental interlude”, and one of those bookends — a closer called “King Me” – begins with Blythe’s “hushed vocals draped in eerie echo effects” and then volleys back and forth between his harsh vocals and an operatic female vocalist, with lyrics in Latin adapted from Mozart’s Requiem. There’s also reportedly “an arty and angular” song called “The Number Six” and “a bona-fide punk rock song” called “Cheated”. Yeah, that all sounds pretty diverse. Continue reading »

Sep 152010
 

This is the second post of the day, which we don’t do very often. As the title says, this is mainly a sappy thank-you post.  Of course it is, because “sappy” is my middle name. Well, it comes right after my other middle names, i.e., “wordy” and “half-assed.”

For many months after we started this blog, no one posted any comments on what we wrote.  Okay, to be honest, for many months no one read what we wrote.  But even after the reading started, our words were greeted by silence.  Figuratively, the sound of crickets.

Not all bad, because I’ve missed the sound of crickets ever since moving to Seattle from Texas years ago. I don’t miss the appearance of crickets, just the sound of them, on warm nights, when you can’t see them. Kind of a dreamy, hypnotic sound. The sound of nature around us, undisturbed.

Where was I?  Oh yeah: No one posted any comments at NCS for a long time.  But now that has changed, and it’s been an exhilarating change for us.  We look forward every day to seeing what readers write, even when someone calls us retarded, and we feel kinda empty on the days when none come.  That’s mainly because the comments are usually better than the posts we write.

Yesterday was a classic example, certainly one of the best comment days ever.  We did a half-baked riff on band names and got a slew of comments that were smart and funny and creative and educational and took the discussion off in unexpected directions, which is part of what’s so much fun about the comments we’re getting.

And did I say the comments are educational?  They’re really educational!  Of course, when, like us, you start in a state of embarrassing ignorance, it may not take much to be educational in our eyes, but still. After the jump, I’ll tell you the things I learned yesterday, and one thing in particular that drew me back to an album I haven’t listened to in a while, and it was just a perfect end to a beautiful Indian summer day in Seattle.

But first: Thank you to the people who commented yesterday — to Dan, and ElvisShotJFK, and Brian, and Andy, and byrd36 — and to everyone else who has taken the time to add something to this site since we started.  And we don’t mean to slight those who simply read and don’t write (which is mainly what I do on other sites).  We are sappily grateful to all of you, too. But if you usually don’t write and are are tempted to write something someday, don’t worry — we won’t bite! (more sappiness, plus some music, after the jump . . .) Continue reading »

Jan 112010
 

I bet the title of this post got your attention, didn’t it? And I bet that if someone does a Google search for “haggis and bong” in the next day or two, we’ll be one of the first returns. Of course, I can’t imagine why anyone would do that — unless you live in South Africa or you stumbled on this news at Blabbermouth:

South African Metal Festival Aims To Set Record For ‘Most People Headbanging Simultaneously’ – Jan. 10, 2010: 21 of South Africa’s top metal bands will perform at the MotherFUDD festival, set to take place March 12-14, 2010 at Malonjeni Guest Resort, South Africa. The event will also host what it claims to be “the first-ever official Guinness World Record for most people headbanging simultaneously” on March 13.

Following the above intro was a list of those 21 bands scheduled to play at the “MotherFUDD” festival, including — you guessed it — Haggis and Bong. (more after the jump . . .) Continue reading »

Jan 022010
 

About a week ago we finished posting our list of the Ten Most Infectious Extreme Metal Songs of 2009. Finishing the list turned out to be a bit of a struggle because your NCS Co-Authors had more favorites than we had open slots on the list.  And each of us had some infectious favorites on our short lists that didn’t survive the final negotiations among us — but they just missed by a nose. So we’re going to roll out those songs now. It’s the next best thing to just reneging on our commitment to make our list a “Top Ten” and instead renaming it the “Top Fourteen.”

LAMB OF GOD:  In Your Words

Lamb of God enjoys such a hallowed place in the pantheon of extreme metal that thousands wait with bated breath for each new release — and then, when it comes, promptly engage in vociferous debate about whether it compares favorably or not to the monster hits of the band’s past.  Wrath was LOG’s first release in over two years, and predictably generated a war of words about whether LOG had lived up to its fans’ stratospheric expectations, and about what it signified about the band’s future trajectory.

We won’t engage in comparisons of the album to LOG’s ground-breaking work of the past: Considered on its own merits, it’s a well-engineered, riff-filled barrage of headbangery by some brilliant song-writers and musicians.

“Infectious” is Lamb of God’s middle name, but our most infectious favorite from Wrath is the first song that appears on the album after the (very cool) instrumental intro.  “In Your Words” launches with an insistent, immediately headbangable riff, followed by an extended scream from the almighty Randy Blythe (whose versatile vocals throughout the album are superb) and a crushing drum attack – and we’re off to the races.  At about  the 2:30 mark, the song defuses into a pounding breakdown and then culminates in an extended cascading wall of pulsing, groovy, tremolo-picked melody.  So damn cool!  See for yourself and then continue reading after the jump for our last three finalists:

Lamb of God: In Your Words Continue reading »

Nov 232009
 

So you all have probably read some things by the author islander, but there’s a new girl in town! I’ll be writing about the music I love and things I’m passionate about. Here is the music I love Continue reading »