It's been a long time coming with plenty of blood, sweat and drama, but Richmond, VA based heavy metallers Lamb Of God are finally gearing up for the release of their upcoming seventh full-length album, VII: Sturm Und Drang, due out in North America on July 24th via Epic Records, Nuclear Blast Entertainment outside of North America.

Lamb Of God frontman Randy Blythe states: “This is a very, very dark, yet sonically highly varied, record." 

Stay tuned for more BraveWords coverage and interviews from of one of the year's most anticipated releases! But in the meantime, two scribes do battle in the latest bout of BraveWords' Crossfire, where VII: Sturm Und Drang is given the ultimate spotlight by David Perri and Greg Pratt below.

 

David Perri - 8/10

Considering all that’s happened in the sphere of Lamb Of God’s reality over the last three years, this Virginia band could be forgiven, eminently, for taking extended time away from the recording process and exploring all of life’s other vantage points to their fullest. But creative people use turbulent situations as their muse it seems (the best art comes from suffering, some still masochistically believe), and so it’s not surprising that the group’s seventh record, VII: Sturm Und Drang, has appeared after the metaphorical palaces have burned. Sturm Und Drang (German for ‘storm and stress’), then, is the literal recollection of that turbulence.

The 2012 incident that saw Lamb Of God vocalist Randy Blythe charged, and temporarily incarcerated, for manslaughter in the Czech Republic has long since been resolved, as Blythe was acquitted by Czech authorities in 2013. But the scars, on all sides of that tragic situation, understandably remain. As a result, it’s no surprise that Sturm Und Drang is one of Lamb Of God’s darkest albums, the band taking its trademark groove/thrash declaration and moving it into considerably more minor-key places. Sturm Und Drang even unexpectedly ventures into Alice In Chains-esque spaces with the hazy “Overload” and during “512”, explores Blythe’s introspection in his jail cell. Guest appearances also make their mark on this record, as both Dillinger Escape Plan’s Greg Puciato and Deftones’ Chino Moreno use their unique vocal ranges to add shade and texture when called on. 

Despite those bouts of experimentation, Lamb Of God generally stays the course and doesn’t deviate from the party line on Sturm Und Drang, an element that won’t surprise anyone who has followed this band for any significant amount of time. Part of Lamb Of God’s appeal has always been its reliability, the group never disappointing its fans as it consistently delivers what’s demanded of it. That said, Lamb Of God is able to convey each new album with vigor and candour, allowing it to avoid becoming the AC/DC (or Shadows Fall) of the extreme metal world.   

About 10 years ago, this scribe predicted to friends, maybe a bit too boldly, that Lamb Of God anthem “Laid To Rest” was the song that would eventually come to be seen as the most concise and accurate encapsulation of the ‘00s metal scene as a whole. A decade later that remains a debatable claim, but if “Laid To Rest” is still burned into your consciousness (or your bench presses), then Sturm Und Drang is your poison of choice. “Delusion Pandemic” strongly reminds of the strength-on-strength of 2006’s “Forgotten (Lost Angels)”, while “Footprints”, “Still Echoes” and “Erase This” are all reflective of Lamb Of God’s innate ability to articulate elements of Megadeth, Fear Factory and Meshuggah into a focused and linear core. And production of the year honours might have to be handed out early for the efforts on “Anthropoid”, this thing hitting with the same slick-but-subversive quality that Bob Rock mastered, literally, on Metallica’s Black Album (apologies for that out of place Bob Rock reference, but I’ve been nostalgic lately).

 

Greg Pratt - 8.5/10

Clearly, Lamb Of God have been through a lot since their last album (2012's cool Resolution), and it'd be natural to wonder how that would come through in the band's sound. Here, opener "Still Echoes" proves that, well, it doesn't really at all, the tune being a classic LOG album-starter, coming out of the gates a touch surprisingly heavy and fast (and check out those killer drum fills), but quickly settling into the expected LOG thrash groove. Hey, we'll take it: the band is nothing if not predictable, but it's a welcome sound, as they are masters of their particular strain of metal. There's been some griping about vocalist Randy Blythe's attempts at clean singing on the album, and for good reason: "Overlord" sounds like crappy modern rock (and man, at 6:28, does that song ever overstay its welcome), a huge black eye on the face of this otherwise stellar Lamb Of God disc (and, good lord, this was released as an advance tune?). Look, I like clean vocals, but not when they drain instead of lift, and make the song a slog instead of a flight; let's not forget Blythe went (kinda) clean on last album's "Insurrection", but that approach was, surprisingly, more world-weary and effective.

However, "Embers" introduces the clean vocals earlier in this disc and they... aren't... horrible. But they just ain't packing a punch, coming across too much like a Warped Tour band crooning away during the chorus with a wink and a smile. "512", now that's more like it, catchy, memorable, heavy, a LOG tune that will sound crushing live, no doubt. Album highlight "Delusion Pandemic" is extremely intense, the spoken word at the ending building the song up wonderfully, the dynamic a perfect example of what makes this band so good, as is the raging solo on the excellent "Erase This" and the awesome build-up and classy guitar work of closer "Torches", Lamb Of God again cementing the fact that they are top of the current thrash heap. If Resolution was a slightly more difficult affair in that there weren't as many huge choruses and catchy tunes as well as steps towards both tossed-off punk and a more experimental sound, this one is a step back towards a more classic LOG vibe ("Footprints", for example, basically could have been off of any of their early albums, and that's a good thing), only thing stopping it from totally ruling being those clean vocals, which are momentum killers of a shocking order.