LAMB OF GOD
‘Into Oblivion’
Epic Records

Once a pioneering act of the new wave of American heavy/thrash metal, Virginia’s LAMB OF GODis now one of its longest-surviving champions. And the band’s durability is testament to the consistency and dependability it has worn as badges of honor for more than 25 years.

While LAMB OF GOD sometimes has strayed a bit from its sonic path, the quintet has never gone completely off the reservation like many of its contemporaries, thus avoiding the dizzying career ups, downs or crashes and burns. Instead, the band honed its sound with a few tweaks each time out to keep things fresh instead of bowing to trends or convention. The results have sometimes been mixed, but there are certainly no turds in the LAMB OF GOD punchbowl.

So while the logo may have changed, and the anger is somewhat newly directed, LAMB OF GOD remains steadfast in its disposition and familiarly unyielding in its delivery on its 10th and latest album ‘Into Oblivion.’Indeed, the band is ruthlessly focused here, with a performance harking all the way back to 2003’s ‘As The Palaces Burn’ in its urgency and efficiency.

LAMB OF GOD cranks out ‘Into Oblivion’s’10 tunes in a lean, mean 39-ish minutes – with an emphasis on mean. While there a few divergences – the broody, Western-hued “El Vacio,” the weird MELVINS-like flourishes of “Sepsis” or the clanging cowbell on “A Thousand Years” – there precious little fat here.

The title track sets the tone with its churning grooves, roiling tempo and Randy Blythe’s fire-breathing vocalsthat are as menacing and resonant as ever – despite the 25 years of screaming and hollering that came before. The song perfectly captures the mood of many who feel that, given the current state of affairs, we may not just be headed on an “excursion” into oblivion but are trapped in an ever-tightening death spiral to its very core. The back-to-back crunchers “St. Catherine’s Wheel” and “Blunt Force Blues” ride Art Cruz’s fluttery kick drum rolls and agile fills but provide much the same impact.

The faster, thrashier “Parasocial Christ,” “The Killing Floor” and “Bully” mix the odd blast beat and heaving hooks with the stutter-step guitar motifs and spider-walky licks from Mark Morton and Willie Adler that will ring familiar to even casual LAMB OF GOD fans. Album closer “Devise/Destroy” has something of old school thrash/punk crossover vibe, at least at the outset, until the muscular grooves take hold. And don’t expect any happy endings here. ‘Into Oblivion’ seethes literally to the last line, with Blythe signing “Devise/Destroy” off with “You’re so fucking worthless.”

Both “Sepsis” and “A Thousand Years” give greater prominence to often-unheralded John Campbell’s bass work. Though long the band’s anchor, Campbell is probably better known as “the dude with the white hair and beard.” But he makes his presence known with the authoritative grind that powers the industrial strength “Sepsis” and the fat, almost funky rumble that plays off Cruz’s aforementioned cowbell on “A Thousand Years.”

“Sepsis” finds Blythe altering his pitbull delivery, at least to a degree, to match its turbulent mood, from teeth-clenched, Frank Booth-like spoken word to tormented shrieks that are genuinely unhinged. The polar opposite is the restrained, breathy cleans on the somber “El Vacio.”While cleans have never been Blythe’s strong point, here they effectively create a haunting aura – at least until the concussive choruses kick in.

After a quarter century, a couple of gold albums and a bunch of Grammy nominations, etc., LAMB OF GOD really doesn’t have much more to prove. But the energized, emphatic and ever-so pissed off ‘Into Oblivion’ offers the sound and fury of a band that certainly feels like it does.

4.0 Out Of 5.0