Richmond, VA groove metallers Lamb of God have landed on the cover of this month's February Issue of Exclaim! They've also recently released their new album, Resolution, marking the band's seventh full-length in 13 years.
While maintaining their classic unrelenting, thrash-influenced Southern heavy metal sound, Resolution is their most musically ambitious outing to date, with Lamb of God experimenting with their signature sound more than ever before.
"We just felt open to any direction. There was criticism, but not the kind that says, 'We can't do that because we're supposed to be doing a certain kind of album,'" drummer Chris Adler tells Exclaim! "It was a lot more freeing for the band because we could try everything out and this album ended up having a lot more diversity than any album we've done."
Resolution's final track, "King Me," features an opera singer and a symphony, which Lamb of God have never done before.
"When we first heard it back, it was like, 'Whoa, I don't know about that, that's a little bit too much, it's crazy.' But the more we listened to it, the more disappointing it was to listen to it without it," Adler says. "Although we were scared at first, I think it did create something that people react to in different ways, I think it makes the hair on your neck stand up."
The result is a record that frontman Randy Blythe says is much better than their previous album, 2009's Wrath.
"[Resolution is] the first record we've made that I've actually enjoyed listening to during the mixing process," Blythe explains. "I personally believe that it is a much better record to be honest, for a few reasons. I just think it sounds better, the guitar tones and especially the drums sound way better. And I sound okay, I'm not a huge judge on myself.
"Also thematically, I think it's a much more cohesive record. Willie [Adler, guitarist] really came into his own as a songwriter, whereas before Mark [Morton, guitarist] was really the songwriter in the group and Willie was the riff master. Willie brought in the craziest, sickest, most insane riffs and Mark had ideas about song structure. This time Willie really thought about where his riffs were going and there was a lot more work between the two of them on structuring the songs, so it's a more dynamic record."
Although confident in the new musical approach, Lamb of God still tend to be compared to metal heavyweights Pantera, which is something the band have mixed feelings about.
"Phil [Anselmo] is a great vocalist and Pantera were a great band, but they're Pantera and we're us," Blythe says. "Phil wasn't a huge influence on me; when I started singing I was listening to a bunch of really, really brutal death metal and really crazy grindcore, that's what got me into metal and then I had to go back and find Pantera and a couple of the bigger bands. I was more into the underground shit first.
"The thing is Phil is not the only dude in the world who has ever screamed and so what? It's interesting to me, I think we get a lot of Pantera comparisons for a lot of different reasons; because we're from the South, because we both have some groove and a lot of Southern rock influences that come through. Pantera were certainly an influence on us as a band, particularly on the guitar players, but some things just sort of happen naturally, it's just the way it is. I always thought we sound more like a Slayer rip-off than a Pantera rip-off."
Resolution is out now via Epic/Sony.
While maintaining their classic unrelenting, thrash-influenced Southern heavy metal sound, Resolution is their most musically ambitious outing to date, with Lamb of God experimenting with their signature sound more than ever before.
"We just felt open to any direction. There was criticism, but not the kind that says, 'We can't do that because we're supposed to be doing a certain kind of album,'" drummer Chris Adler tells Exclaim! "It was a lot more freeing for the band because we could try everything out and this album ended up having a lot more diversity than any album we've done."
Resolution's final track, "King Me," features an opera singer and a symphony, which Lamb of God have never done before.
"When we first heard it back, it was like, 'Whoa, I don't know about that, that's a little bit too much, it's crazy.' But the more we listened to it, the more disappointing it was to listen to it without it," Adler says. "Although we were scared at first, I think it did create something that people react to in different ways, I think it makes the hair on your neck stand up."
The result is a record that frontman Randy Blythe says is much better than their previous album, 2009's Wrath.
"[Resolution is] the first record we've made that I've actually enjoyed listening to during the mixing process," Blythe explains. "I personally believe that it is a much better record to be honest, for a few reasons. I just think it sounds better, the guitar tones and especially the drums sound way better. And I sound okay, I'm not a huge judge on myself.
"Also thematically, I think it's a much more cohesive record. Willie [Adler, guitarist] really came into his own as a songwriter, whereas before Mark [Morton, guitarist] was really the songwriter in the group and Willie was the riff master. Willie brought in the craziest, sickest, most insane riffs and Mark had ideas about song structure. This time Willie really thought about where his riffs were going and there was a lot more work between the two of them on structuring the songs, so it's a more dynamic record."
Although confident in the new musical approach, Lamb of God still tend to be compared to metal heavyweights Pantera, which is something the band have mixed feelings about.
"Phil [Anselmo] is a great vocalist and Pantera were a great band, but they're Pantera and we're us," Blythe says. "Phil wasn't a huge influence on me; when I started singing I was listening to a bunch of really, really brutal death metal and really crazy grindcore, that's what got me into metal and then I had to go back and find Pantera and a couple of the bigger bands. I was more into the underground shit first.
"The thing is Phil is not the only dude in the world who has ever screamed and so what? It's interesting to me, I think we get a lot of Pantera comparisons for a lot of different reasons; because we're from the South, because we both have some groove and a lot of Southern rock influences that come through. Pantera were certainly an influence on us as a band, particularly on the guitar players, but some things just sort of happen naturally, it's just the way it is. I always thought we sound more like a Slayer rip-off than a Pantera rip-off."
Resolution is out now via Epic/Sony.
