Kingcrimsonprog
As The Palaces Burn is Lamb Of God's second full length studio album. The album is hugely important to the Lamb of God story, spawning crowd favorites `Ruin,' `Vigil,' and the title track. From start to finish there are no weak tracks and every Lamb of God member puts in a top notch performance.
This is the album were the Lamb of God sound is properly established, where the lyrical style is properly established and where Randy's Vocals sound right for the first time on this release, with his trademark half Death Growl half metalcore bark making up the majority of the vocal contributions to this album. With Devon Townsend in the Engineer's and Producer's chairs The Lamb of God sound was finally captured on an album. The production is a huge step up from their debut but is still a little raw and noisy by modern standards.
The album contains a lot of excellent songs with `11th Hour,' `Purified,' and `In Defense of Our Good Name,' standing out in particular. Guest guitar contributions from Chris Poland on `Purified,' are welcome and don't feel out of place whatsoever.
The only downside with the album is that the material is very difficult to become familiar with, and while you will enjoy and be impressed by the technical and heavy music its not the kind of thing you'll have stuck in your head after your first listen.
If you like Lamb of God then you simply have to get As The Palaces Burn, it's a Grower but be persistent, its worth it.