LAMB OF GOD — VII: Sturm und Drang (review)

LAMB OF GOD — VII: Sturm und Drang album cover

Album · 2015 · Groove Metal

3.5/5 · 2015-09-27
UMUR

"VII: Sturm und Drang" is the 7th full-length studio album by US metal act Lamb of God. The album was released through Epic/Nuclear Blast Entertainment in July 2015. It´s been three and a half years since the release of "Resolution (2012)", which the band initially spend touring, but later also with other projects and ordeals.

The most talked about probably the arrest and incarceration of lead vocalist David Randall Blythe by Czech police in June 2012 on charges of committing intentional bodily harm during a 2010 concert in Prague where a 19-year-old fan climbed up onto the stage with with the singer, and was subsequently pushed off the stage, hit his head on the venue floor, and later died from his injuries. Blythe spend 38 days in jail before bail was posted, and the band could continue the tour they where on. Blythe returned to the Czech republic to face the charges in 2013, but was eventually deemed by the court to not be responsible for the death of the Czech fan. The whole ordeal was hard on Blythe though, who in a statement in January 2014 said that he was taking an extended break from Lamb of God. Until the band started working on "VII: Sturm und Drang" in late 2014, Blythe spend time working on a book.

The other major side-project was drummer Chris Adler´s work with Megadeth on their 15th full-length studio album. After the departure of Shawn Drover in late 2014, Dave Mustaine asked Adler if he wanted to play the drums on the next Megadeth album, and being a huge Megadeth fan Adler didn´t think twice about the opportunity to play on an album by his musical heroes.

Despite a few unusual and hard years for the members of the band, the music on "VII: Sturm und Drang" sounds unmistakably like Lamb of God. Blythe (successfully) experiments with the occasional (rare) use of clean vocals (especially on "Overlord"), but other than that it´s pretty much business as usual. The distinct groove created by the rhythm section of drummer Chris Adler and bassist John Steven Campbell is there and accounted for, the groove oriented riffs, and occasional more thrash oriented sections are there too, and of course the semi-growling and sometimes core tinged screaming of Randy Blythe. The music is actually a bit hard to tag as it lands somewhere between groove metal, metalcore, and thrash metal.

The material on the 10 track, 48:17 minutes long album is well written, although it´s only some tracks which stand out. I´m not sure I´d call the once that don´t stand out filler material, but they could easily have been more catchy and prospered from that. The day Lamb of God releases an album packed with only standout tracks, is the day they have created a masterpiece. That´s not exactly the case with "VII: Sturm und Drang" even though it´s a great quality release on most other parameters. The musicianship is on a high level, and the sound production is powerful, raw, and suitably organic. A 3.5 star (70%) rating is deserved.