Brien Overly
Suggested head: By Brien Overly
Lamb of God singer Randy Blythe’s shirt said it all: ‘F*** Subtlety.”
Uncensored and unashamed, the band would indeed pound their style of hardcore metal into the audience’s ears with the subtlety of a brick to the face.
What makes Lamb of God so appealing to hard rock fans is their ability to bridge the gap between old and new, taking ’80s hair metal guitar solos and headbanger stage presence and modernizing it with Blythe’s gravelly hardcore, death-metal inspired vocals. Raw, stripped down and bare-knuckled, the band was the image of everything a metal band ought to be.
Blythe by himself is downright scary at times in his intensity. Walking around the stage stone-jawed, looking ready to breathe fire, spitting out endless words of acidic guttural growling, he showed himself to be one of the leading frontmen in all of hard rock.
Part of Blythe’s charisma is in how he gives off a constant feeling that he’s retaining something, that he’s building and building toward some very big vocal explosion only to draw it out and work the crowd up even more.
Of course, it being November 1 and all, this was a last chance to make a statement about the elections.
To this, Blythe said, “We don’t care who you vote for as long as you vote. But this next song goes out to everyone voting against Bush.”
The band then launched into “Ruin” and “Now You’ve Got Something to Die For.”
Lamb of God proclaims themselves to be “pure American metal,” and if you don’t agree with them, Randy Blythe will come to your house and personally eat your soul.