transcendent theory

FIRST ALBUM REVIEW ON THE BLOG!!!

This album is very near and dear to me because it’s the first real Metal album I came to love. The post is long, and I unreservedly declare my love to Metal, deal with it. BUT I LOVE U 4 READING THANK U

Besuretocheckoutmy Rationale + Purpose to figure out what this is all abooooout!!

Album Name/ Artist: Resolution by Lamb of God

Record Label/ Release Date/ Genre: January 24, 2012; Epic/Roadrunner Records; Groove/Thrash Metal

How I was introduced: I was introduced to Lamb of God by my friend George who recommended me to listen to LoG’s Resolution and Wrath. Lamb of God put the final nail in the coffin in my metal conversion. I had sporadically been listening to metal for about 4 months before I met LoG, and although there was quite a bit of metal that I liked, I hadn’t yet met a band that I wholeheartedly loved. I am such a “band” person. I’m not content just listening to random songs from various artists--I like to have bands or artists that I am undyingly loyal to. I want to know every song they’ve ever made! I want to really mean it when I say “I love this band” read: I can identify any song one of their songs within the first 5 seconds. Intense, I know. As soon as I heard that first deep breath before the opening track’s initial scream, I knew that I had found “my band.” To be honest, I hesitated listening to LoG previously because of their sacrilegious name. How could I in good conscience listen to a band that so blatantly abused religious imagery that is particularly meaningful to me? Because you can’t take all shit seriously. That’s why.

This all said… I don’t love every LoG album. THAT’S the sacrilege, I know!!! Quite honestly I only really like Resolution and Wrath. There are fantastic songs on their other albums, but the albums on a whole are kinda meh. Controversial opinion, I know!!! I still love u LoG.

Place in life when I first listened: This was an interesting time of lots of ups and downs. I was sporadically working and unsure about my future. I knew deep down that it was time for a change, but I just didn’t have any idea of what that would be. One day during this time, I went for a walk and it was gorgeous and I felt totally fine and then the next minute I was on the phone with my mom bawling because I had no purpose in life. REAL LIFE PEOPLE. My life had been such a mixed bag of random sporadic directionless jobs and everyone was getting married or had careers and I felt like I had nothing EXCEPT a new-found love for metal. When there’s nothing in life to look forward to, the little things mean everything. Metal was a God-send to me because it was an outlet for my emotions. Feeling like I have no control over my life? Feeling like no one can understand the way you feel? Listen to someone else scream for you. Someone else took all those emotions that you are feeling and slaved away mastering an instrument and put hours and hours into writing and perfecting a song JUST so they could create something that you could relate to. And man… does metal ever know how to depict emotions. I can sit in a peacefulness when I listen to it because it gives me permission to feel and let those feelings go.

Immediately after I listened to Resolution 20 times in a row, I googled “best LoG songs.” I was in the airport on my way home when I did this and I devoured every song on the list. It was during this time that I listened to “Blacken the Cursed Sun,” from the Sacrament album, for the first time. The lyrics stopped me dead in my tracks and I did that cold-sweat heart-racing thing that happens when you get consumed by an idea that you MUST pursue and I opened up my laptop right then and there in the Edmonton airport and I pumped out an entire Song Spotlight. My first real piece of writing for this blog. Yet to be published, but still. So thank u Lamb of God for inspiring me to get my ass into gear and start this thing.

Synopsis/ Themes: Okkkkaaaaaaaay. So the word I would use to describe this album is “disenchantment.” Nothing in this life has gone the way we have hoped (You can’t tell me you’ve never felt this way before). In one of my favourite lines of the album (my fav because it’s soooo cheesy), Randy eloquently describes his despair by referring to earth as “paradise lost, a beautiful wreck.” Super great right. Alongside those feelings of jadedness is the refusal to be treated like garbage. The whole album is an anthem proclaiming autonomy. This is very very classic LoG. Amidst the existential despair, their “resolution” to stand up for themselves is extremely clear.

They say super hopeless things like “The world keeps spinning around your cage” and “Life is born of agony’s strain/ Manifested in suffering,” but damn do they ever make you want to drop everything you’re doing and climb to the highest turret to scream along with them. This album from beginning to end has a powerful momentum and pumps adrenaline through your veins for its entire 66 minutes. And I seriously don’t think there’s a better album intro than Straight for the Sun. If you’re not a Metal person, and you don’t “get” Straight for the Sun, like, if you don’t get even an inkling of understanding as to why anyone could ever listen to it, then there is no hope that you will ever like Metal. It’s just… that symbolic of Metal to me. Fight me on that. And that transition between Straight for the Sun and Desolation!!!! I die and go to heaven it’s so damn good. Once I had my music on shuffle while I was driving and it played Straight for the Sun and Desolation back to back and it was literally the greatest moment of my life. Nothing will surpass that moment. Nothing.

My favourite tracks are Straight for the Sun (duh) (when he screams GONE *chills*) (like go listen to this song right now it might shock you but you’ll thank me later), Desolation (it took a while for this one to grow on me, it’s very thrash-y), Ghostwalking, Insurrection, Terminally Unique, and King Me. King Me is the greatest track on the album and ever done by LoG, in my personal opinion. It’s an epic. But the whole album is SOOOOO fun in a very there-isn’t-a-single-moment-that-I-don’t-want-to-headbang sort of way, which IS super fun in it’s own special way :)

Glimmers of Gold: So this album may ooze hopelessness, but it’s got some gems in there!! Also here’s the thing about Metal lyrics: they aren’t all meant to be taken seriously. *Cue the first of many Metal rants to come* A lot of the time they’re going for the shock factor-- that’s the cornerstone of Metal as a genre. There’s also a lot of storytelling that happens (similar to Country in a sense--more of that to come, don’t you worry), but these stories are meant to shock and often are related to the supernatural. You can see an example of this in Visitation on this album. More than any other genre of music, except perhaps orchestral, Metal is about depicting emotions through sounds. This is most obvious in the vocals, which is almost always entirely composed of screams and growls, but also in the instrumental. The beauty about screaming is that it depicts a huge range of emotions-- anger, yes, but also fear, pain, sadness, rage against injustice, despair, strength of resolve, commitment, jubilation. So not usually happy feelings, but here’s the thing-- life isn’t always happy. It isn’t even mostly happy. The versatility of screaming as a means to communicate is staggering. There’s great beauty in it, if you’re open to recognizing it.

As key as the actual musicianship aspect of songs are (and in Metal, I’d argue that part is the most important), lyrics are also important, obvs. It’s not fair to generalize, buuuut I’m going to do it anyway and say that more often than not, Metal bands seem to “focus” their lyrics of all of their songs into one specific theme. This allows them to “fit” within their genre of Metal. THERE. ARE. SO. MANY. DIFFERENT. TYPES. OF. METAL. I won’t get into it but it’s absolutely insane. Lamb of God is notorious for vehemently opposing being classified within a particular genre (and some people don’t even consider LoG Metal AT ALL, I just can’t understand that logic), but they do have lyrical theme. I think it’s opposition to injustice. They’ve all lived hard lives and been shitted on, and people relate to that, so they side with the underdog. They’re one of “the people,” they “get” “the people.” This mentality in general is what makes Metal so insanely popular. People just wanna have someone who relates.

Soooo, these are what the following lyrics are about. Identifying with the underdog, saying “yes life is frickin hard and you’re not alone,” raging against injustice. Agree with me or not, that’s fine, and interpret them for yourself. These are just the lyrics from the album that I feel embody some elements of truth-- imperfectly, but humanly.

You lived through hell, now you're trying to die/ The skin is healed but your bleeding inside/ Shots fired just to numb the pain/ There's no one left to save

Bound by the chain of lies you've wrapped around you/ You're trapped in regression/ Dying in the face of the truth/ Stoic in silence we're blind inside the void/ Ruins remind us of all we've destroyed/ Dead rail / No way back from here/ The mainline to nowhere

Deal the last hand, let the cards fall where they may/ From your castle made of sand you're looking down at me/ You brand it a crisis/ I name it an honour/ To face what arises/ To remain unconquered./ All the worst that I feared has come to pass/ And despair is in an endless supply/ I dug my way to bottom of the bloody truth/ Buried beneath a spotless lie/ I'm sworn to stay the course that I alone have chosen/ Because we're all gonna die.

A broken voice without a word to live by/ Eyes slammed shut watch the world go by/ It should have been way better than this/ You can't anticipate the things that you miss/ And how long til you let it go

Seal all the exits, tie your own hands/ Burn all the bridges, head in the sand./ How far did you think that you could run?/ You crossed the last meridian/ And it's all coming down now as the clock ticks on/ Your life is passing by./ Awaken.

All of that is ending now for I have arisen/ Survived myself somehow, dead and imprisoned/ I’m fighting to live if I am to see the day/ I swear I’ll never sleep again/ I am no man’s slave.

Conceit & pride are going viral/ A globe that's reached its critical mass/ A pixilated downward spiral/ Fixated on the looking glass.

Personal Thoughts/ Meaning: As I mentioned, this album means a lot to me because it tipped the scales in my internal “do I really like Metal or not” debate. This album to me is a triumph-- life seems hopeless at times, but we’re going to fight anyway. We’re all going to die, but we’ll fight until our dying breath. I love that. As someone who is very prone to despair, I need that push to keep fighting. Remember where I was at when I first listened to this album? I don’t think it’s a coincidence that this album came into my life at that time.

On a music level, I think the flow of this album is near perfect. Being Lamb of God’s 7th album, it is very true to its roots, but also pushes the limits into prog metal (which I have super duper heart eyes for) and OWNS it. LoG is a great gateway into Metal--they embody the spirit of it, but they make it accessible and fun. I like to consider them the “pop” of Metal--super catchy tunes, super popular, very loveable. Give them a try, Metalhead or not! Once you hook on to the melody, you can look past the screaming and the heaviness and enjoy it. Who knows, you might actually come to love the vocals. Besides, Randy is one of the best in the business, he surely doesn’t disappoint.