Lamb of God, 'Wrath' (Epic)

Punk-metal brutes reject nuance, a.k.a. wussiness.

The latest outburst of controlled aggression from these veteran Virginia metallurgists proves that consistency is a blessing and a curse. As always, the palm-muted jackhammer riffs and Randy Blythe's elastic denunciations of liars, hypocrites, and lying hypocrites are frightfully precise. Even the album's construction is unwavering -- every fifth track opens with delicate guitar filigrees. But primally satisfying as it is, the band's meat-and- taters thrash leaves one hungry for some Mastodon- style lateral thinking. Or not: The conflation of 9/11 and ecological ruin on "Reclamation" ends the slaughter in spectacularly blockheaded style.

Comments

Got something to say?

The content of this field is kept private and will not be shown publicly.
  • Web page addresses and e-mail addresses turn into links automatically.
  • No HTML tags allowed
  • Lines and paragraphs break automatically.
  • Use <!--pagebreak--> to create page breaks.

More information about formatting options

Are You Human?
If so, enter the four-letter code below.
Image CAPTCHA