Review: Lamb of God – As The Palaces Burn (10th Anniversary Edition)

Lamb Of God are one of the biggest Metal bands in recent years. Controversial, heavy and mesmerizing, they’re one of the most influential Metal bands to have spawned since the likes of Metallica, Pantera and Iron Maiden and have only seemed to progress with each album they release.

This year marks the tenth anniversary of one of their most critically acclaimed albums to date, an album that inspired many artists and influenced some of the greatest Metal albums released over the last ten years. This remixed, remastered version of ‘As The Palaces Burn' is something for the fans to relish in as the tracks sound better than ever and an assortment of bonus content.

The album begins with ‘Ruin’, a track that is fast and heavy. It is a killer opening, filled with chuggy riffs, epic and complex drumming, shredding bass-lines and Randy’s unique vocal abilities. From the outset, you can hear the vast difference between sound quality from this remixed edition to the original version. Everything is heavier, sharper and more crisp. The mix seems a little more tight and things you may not have noticed before hand appear from nowhere.

Every little detail can be heard, providing a richer, more fulfilling album to listen to. Tracks such as ‘11th Hour’, ‘A Devil In God’s Country’, ‘Blood Junkie’ and ‘As The Palaces Burn’ really stand out, with ‘11th Hour’ being one of their most acclaimed and popular songs to date.

Everything works nicely, a smooth flow of heavy and furious Metal. With anger and hatred being spit out by Randy Blythe and with everyone else providing the instrumentals that help complete the album, it is an amazing experience that seeps into your mind. The lyrics are full of hatred that is aimed at the US government, questioning their motives and facing the subject of 9/11 (something daring seeming as the event took place just two years earlier).

People despised the album for it being so daring but it proved to be an essential album that helped influence so many other artists, including Machine Head, with ‘As The Palaces Burn’ helping to inspire their latter album, ‘Through The Ashes Of Empires’, released one year after Lamb Of God’s masterpiece. After the usual tracks from the original album, you get three unreleased demo tracks for ‘Ruin’, ‘As The Palaces Burn’ and ‘Blood Junkie’. These are the perfect companions for a tenth anniversary, showing the progression of these particular songs.

Fans will revel in the bliss of these demos and in the perfection of the entire album itself. Something of a collectors item for all the fans, it serves its purpose and does it well. The mix and the mastering is well handled, making sure every little thing can be heard providing an amazing experience for its listeners. It is something to give back to the fans and proves why this band are one of the biggest Metal bands in recent history. It is damn near remarkable.

With chuggy bass, precision drumming, electrifying riffs and vocals to wake the dead, this is something to behold and revel in its beauty. The original album was, and still is, amazing but this really helps bring it to the forefront, showing everyone just how good it is. It’s understandable why the band are as big as they are now, with this album alone proving their masterclass. Some hail it as their masterpiece, others say it was the first album that truly showed how good Lamb Of God are.

Whatever your opinion, there is no denying that this album is as beautiful as it is heavy, as shocking as it is amazing, as influential as it is controversial. It is inspiring whilst it makes you want to smash everything in sight. Now, what else would you want from a Metal album?

10/10

- Asa

Review: Strychnia - Reanimated Monstrosity

Strychnia's new EP “Reanimated Monstrosity” is easily the most impressive set of songs to come from a band of this stature. Not only is the quality extremely good but these songs hold up and greatly surpass any other band in this genre of music.

The hard hitting guitar solos, fast paced blast beats, and gut-wrenching screams that are showcased in these songs will surprise any listener that they are coming from a local-sized band. This collection of music represents a perfect execution of a thrash metal sound as well as technical skill.

One song that can speak for the band’s sound as a whole would be “War Sermon”. This song has a classic metal feel, but with a modern thrash spin put to it. It sums up the EP as a whole and really rolls the band’s sound into one song. Another song to make a note of is the title track and opener “Reanimated Monstrosity”. Not many openers can excite and immerse the listener as deeply as this one. It energizes and immediately addicts the listener to the powerhouse sound that this band brings to the table.

When it comes to criticisms…well that’s just it. I couldn’t find any. I always want to give a band a fair review from an objective standpoint and to be honest about the good parts and the bad parts no matter how much I like the band or enjoy the genre, but I just don’t have any complaints about this EP. I was very apprehensive when I saw the ending song to be a Pantera cover, but it fits in perfectly with the rest of the fluid synergy of this EP. Every song has a consistent style to it and an easy distinction.

Whether you are a thrash fan or not, this album is easily one of the best EP’s of the year and one of the best modern thrash sets out there. Coming out of a local band from NJ, this is more than impressive. From the well crafted songs to the pure mind-blowing skill that this band ties into the structure of their sound; they really bring a refreshing style to the table of modern metal. Hats off to these guys, and keep an eye out for them.

10/10

- Nic

Track by Track: Strychnia “Reanimated Monstrosity”

Strychnia have a new EP coming out on May 14th and vocalist Kevin O’Laughlin has the lowdown on each track!

Reanimated Monstrosity
Bringing the band back! That’s what this song represents, as well as the EP. The band is the ‘Monstrosity’ and we’re bringing it back to life, or ‘Reanimating’ it. So we’re metaphorically portraying ourselves as this sickening beast and we’re rising from the dead to come back and just unleash hell and violence. We’re gonna “crush through the opposition” and nothing will stop us. Now that we’ve given you the idea, you can pretty much just read through the entire song and relate everything to our reform. We added in some gore because we love it, so the parts that John of Dying Fetus sings over, he’s basically talking about dethroning the enemy and killing them. “Spinal cord submission” can portray paralysis and “carving out the throat” can represent silence. Again, the whole idea behind this song is just coming back and destroying everything. We want to be on top of the NJ scene and eventually the fucking world!

War Sermon
The lyrics in war sermon are like the tortured screams of the oppressed peoples scattered across remote corners of our world. The innocent people that suffer under violent military regimes, or religiously corrupted governments. “Indoctrination reactivate” as in feed them lies, think as we think, do as we allow. “Lunatic prophets derange the poems,” meaning a person of power twisting the supposed holy words of god into a new meaning used to control others.

Unfortunately many people are similar to sheep that will follow a master and would never bite the hand that feeds them. “Faithless freedom seekers aim to shift the trend through violent means an upheaval crumbles monuments.” Some however, will rise up violent and strong against their oppressors, which is what’s depicted in those lines. Those at the top will always want to keep those at the bottom where they are. When it comes down to it, it’s for their own power and greed. “For power and greed the war sermon shall bleed.” The war sermon is the message of hate they preach to the people and hypothetically bleed on to them. BLEED!

Killdozer
This song is about an army of cybernetic abominations pulverizing a town and essentially taking over the world. Each abomination could be considered a “Killdozer” and we got really in depth describing their features and some of their actions. “Biomechanical mutations, synthesizing blood for fuel. Iron plates, seeping, human plasma…” We really wanted to create a vivid image in the readers head. These monsters are ripping apart the town and harvesting human remains and converting it into resources.

This was a really fun song to write, and we got the idea from an actual story about a guy who armor-plated a bulldozer and started cruising through his hometown and destroying buildings/houses of people who screwed him over. Obviously that’s not that interesting when you break it down but the concept of turning that into a fictional story and making it brutal for metal… that’s fucking cool!

Cephalectomy
Vengeance is sweet. This song describes a new method of execution or death penalty. Imagine a system, where criminals are killed by families of murder victims. So these criminals have ruined these people’s lives, and now they have a chance for redemption. Now obviously we had to spice this up a bit and make it fit our gore-themed style of writing. So we threw a little twist on it and described these families as if they’re savage beasts and they have NOTHING on their mind but the killing of these criminals. “Solitary confinement of their minds, Infesting urge to kill.”

We then took it further and described the actual killing of these criminals with some lines like “Feeding frenzy, dismemberment, blood for the masses!”. After they kill them of course they have to “disgrace the corpse” and do even more fucked up shit. Although this song is fictional, there are probably people out there who would love this concept! When things come up like the recent Boston bombings, shit like this comes to mind. If only they could throw those piece of shit terrorists into a “pit of hell”!

Slaughtered
The fifth track on our EP is a Pantera cover so obviously I can’t do any explaining here.