NEW AMERICAN GOSPEL: Lamb of God - Ashes of the Wake

III: Oak Fest Heehaws

I can remember the exact moment the curtain was peeled back on Lamb of God for me.  It was during the brief period I was in a real band when I was in high school, sometime around 2006.  We decided we should learn a cover or two in addition to writing originals just to kind of help us gel as players together, and we decided on Lamb of God's "Hourglass" among a few others.  We all went home to learn our respective parts, and at the next band practice we all announced pretty much in unison "Man, did anyone else not realize before how fucking boring that song is?"  Yeah it turns out that once you strip the drums away (which are always the most impressive part of any given Lamb of God track), the riffs themselves are just fucking dull as hell and completely mind numbing to play, and "Hourglass" is a great representative for such a phenomenon.  I think we all decided on that song initially because that riff about one minute into the song is fucking devastating, but after that glorious twenty seconds, the guitars and bass basically just play straight eighth notes at one tempo for the next three solid minutes and not a single one of us ever wanted to play it again.

Now, obviously I still liked Lamb of God after this moment (as you'll see as the series continues), but it really does highlight one of the biggest problems with Ashes of the Wake.  While it may be their most popular album by a pretty huge margin and is considered a high watermark for the scene, it is boring as shit once you pay attention medium-hard.  In fact this is the one I'm probably most dreading writing about simply because I fucking hate listening to it.

The band was already well popular by this point, but this really sees the band on autopilot, which might sound odd considering it's their most iconic album and features their most popular song, but it's true.  That inspired ferocity of New American Gospel is pretty much entirely gone at this point, replaced with a very calculated sense of obligation.  Almost all of these riffs sound focus tested to an extreme degree.  Whenever it sounds like they're about to really break out into some sort of unhinged aggression, it steps back and starts plodding with super pedestrian groove riffs.  "The Faded Line" is a great example of this, with that neat zippy guitar line right before the chorus barges in and starts stinking up the joint with an uninspired In Flames knockoff riff.  The title track does this as well, with that pure thrash riff that starts up about a minute into the song (what is up with this album and the good riffs starting at the one minute mark and never showing up again?) is absolutely fucking explosive but finds itself bookended by phoned-in nonsense and a really piddly atmospheric section.  "Ashes of the Wake" has potential to be the best song in general since it's loaded with solos (something the band tends to eschew) and contains the best riff on the album, but as it stands its really bloated and faffs about with no real direction far too often, especially in the slower middle section.

It's hard to really describe the problems with the album outside of just calling it phoned-in or half-assed, because that's really all it is.  It's the exact same type of riff structure and songwriting flow that made the good songs on As the Palaces Burn work so well, but apart from a few scattered tracks they all just sound like they were written in an afternoon in a quick attempt to cash in on the success of the previous album (it did come out a mere 15 months later, and it's not like they didn't tour in support of that previous album).  I mean holy shit listen to "Omerta", it's a five minute track that feels like fifteen because it's just mid paced plodding that never gets to the god damned point.  It's also one of the oddly several tracks with spoken word segments, which always feel like pointless add-ons that Randy couldn't be bothered to growl properly.  The opening of "Omerta" is the most egregious since it's completely a capella and even structures the words themselves in such a way that they rob themselves of dramatic tension.  That's such a weird thing to call out, but there's a reason he flips the "If I live, I will kill you, if I die, you are forgiven" part when they play this song live.

The good songs are easy to point out, because there's only really two of them.  I'll give a little bit of credit to "Blood of the Scribe" for having a good amount of adrenaline in it for a few moments, but it mostly falls into the same trap as "Hourglass" where it starts off way better than it ends (the exact opposite problem of what they suffered on the previous album), but it's really not a contest when it comes to what the best songs are.  "Break You" and "Laid to Rest" absolutely tear the rest of this album to shreds, without fucking question.  The former sounds like a lost session from As the Palaces Burn with how frenetic it is, and it's such a welcome feature for pretty much every aspect to shift as often as it does since the rest of the album is so pedestrian and samey.  The tempo is constantly fluctuating up to some of the album's highest speeds, the riffs are positively thrashy at times (this isn't usually their strength, but on this album almost all of the best riffs sound like lost thrash riffs) and Randy utilizes his higher register much more often on this one than any other track.

But really, I'm dancing around the elephant in the room here.  "Laid to Rest" is the band's signature song, the one that found itself on Guitar Hero II, the one they are guaranteed to play at every single show (I saw them like eight times between 2006-2010 and they opened with it every damn time), and holy shit did it earn that distinction.  You'd think Ashes of the Wake was going to be this massive fucking statement based on how monstrously huge the opening track is, because god damn is "Laid to Rest" a fucking statement.  Every single riff is devastating, the song is built in such a way that it just keeps pummeling you over and over again, the chorus is gorgeously destructive, even the "SEE WHO GIVES A FUCK" part is so corny that it loops around to being endearing.  Even the breakdown fucking kills, which is impressive because this album is so loaded with lazy-ass open-string chug breakdowns that feel thrown in as an obligation.  And when it ends and the chorus riff comes charging back in underneath a fifteen second scream?  Just god damn I break my oath to the Volcel Police every time.  The whole song is fucking excellent and is pretty much the anthem for this nebulous "New Wave of American Heavy Metal" that was sweeping the nation at the time.  This is the song that every God Forbid and Shadows Fall wished they had written.

Again, there's really no place to put this, but it's worth mentioning that they definitely got the production right on this one.  Instead of the mix being a muddy slush of excess gain that sounds like it was recorded on a cell phone, Ashes of the Wake is exactly as tight and heavy as the songs themselves.  As far as I'm concerned this album has two true claims to fame despite all of the lazy bullshit on it: "Laid to Rest" is an awesome song and at least they got the production right this time.  I'm never going to bring up the production again because every single album from here on out sounds exactly like this one.

And yet, Ashes of the Wake drops the ball super quickly afterwards because it's almost nothing but lameass filler from the second track until the end.  I didn't even point out how much "Now You've Got Something to Die For" sucks, but it really needs to be mentioned that it truly does suck.  What a lazy and uninspired excuse for a crowd singalong.  The day they retire it from the setlist is the day I'll consider paying money to see them live again.  The few scattered moments of excellence that pop up in "Blood of the Scribe" and the title track plus the lone other good-the-whole-time track, "Break You", just can't overcome the lazy weakness of the rest of the album.  Lamb of God cemented their legacy on this album, but it's a shame because god damn this is their first truly bad one.


RATING: 37%