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Lamb of God > New American Gospel > Reviews
Lamb of God - New American Gospel

Lamb of God were quite brutal back then - 83%

Annable Courts, January 13th, 2024

The temptation to ping this as one giant monolith of chug grooves with the same unintelligible vocal line over and over in every single song is indeed strong. And yet, an actual attentive listen will tell a much different story. So how could this - at best raw - entrance into the metal world possibly warrant a better rating than its successor, the much more detailed and tighter 'As the Palaces Burn'? Because although the boys keep going to the big groove guitars on this, they do it with remarkable efficiency. The production is dirty with a big-ass low end on it and thick, overweight guitars, and those grooves are consistently inspired. They keep coming, but nearly each time, they surprise with yet another good twist to them. Some of the better ones: 'Pariah' verse, 'Black Label' verse, 'Letter to the Unborn' outro.

The riffing is the same way: it's not some scale recital and is continually showing off new combinations with just enough of an edge to complement a part. Lamb of God have never sounded this outright brutal, between the utterly tectonic grooves or the darker doomy inspirations. There's even succinct elements of death metal here: the tremolo picking and blast beat section on 'Warning' or the tremolo part on 'Letter to the Unborn', or that rabid riff midway into 'The Black Dahlia'.

Then there's some of more unique aspects. 'Terror and Hubris...' after a fairly generic opening goes to a highly dissonant start to the verse before the vocals come in. Those vocals are like nothing this band has ever had, and arguably like nothing out there really, and oddly enough they work perfectly well for that peculiar brand of dissonant groove. They're like a plaintive cry channeled through anguished screaming as if completely maddened, and form a bit of a split personality dynamic with the growly barks that follow. That song is like a very seriously alarming and vivid ode to delirium.

Next and very much in the same vein is 'The Subtle Arts...'. A mathy intro with start-stop breakdown rhythms accommodate an odd tremolo lead that's got that same troubling atmosphere to it. Finally the hook in the middle of 'Pariah' with more of those dissonant lead phrases over a powerful breakdown association is worth a mention.

On later records, the drums would stop sounding like ass and Blythe would start putting in more credible shifts and the song-writing would tighten up more, but the band would forever lose that highly turbulent, nearly unstable energy of a darker, raw and punishing nature. They'd essentially clean up their act, possibly sanitizing it to the taste of some.

I: Leering Spacewoman - 88%

BastardHead, August 25th, 2019

Lamb of God first broke onto the scene in 2000 with this, New American Gospel, an arguably ambitious title because whether they knew it or not, they were right on the cusp of ushering in an entirely new era of heavy music for the country. Despite that, New American Gospel is really unique in their discography because, unless this is your first exposure to the band, this is clearly very different from the sound they'd become known for in the near future. In essence, this album pulls double duty being both the first Lamb of God album and effectively the second Burn the Priest album.

At this point in time, Lamb of God was still a very chaotic band. That's not to say this is really spazzy and technical, because it's not, but this is by far the most anarchic and least structured album of their career. At almost no point does the band sound like they really know what they're doing, and frankly that's the entire appeal to me. This is the sound of a relatively young band (though everybody barring Willie Adler, the "baby" of the band being a few years younger than the rest, were all in their late 20s at the time) just flying by the seat of their pants and figuring shit out as they went. There are obviously moments of well crafted songwriting like the iconic buildup in "Black Label" or the intro of "The Subtle Arts of Murder and Persuasion", but on tracks like "A Warning", "In the Absence of the Sacred", and especially "Confessional" they sound absolutely fucking unhinged. There is a shitload of hardcore influence on here, and I don't mean the same kind of hardcore influence that many of their contemporaries in the As I Lay Dying or Killswitch Engage camps were showcasing. This is less about calculated dropped-string open chugs and more about sheer chaotic noise. It would be misleading to say that specific type of chuggy breakdown never appears here, it's pretty common actually, but the songs aren't built around them. Instead everything feels like it happens by accident. This is a very organic album that drowns itself in agony and frustration, with the drums lashing out in violent tantrums at seemingly random times underneath discordant and damn near unlistenable wailing riffs.

That might sound like I'm knocking the album, but I'm really not. This is going to be an insane comparison, but bear with me: I view New American Gospel similarly to how I view Ulver's Nattens Madrigal. I know they're very different albums, but they have a common thread between them in that they're nigh unlistenable masterpieces. This album is, objectively speaking, a fucking mess. It's a structureless mishmash of disconnected riffs and drums that are far more technical than any of the other instruments, which seem content to take quasi Pantera-esque groove and inject them with massive doses of speed and dissonance. The typical verse-chorus structure is nowhere to be found here, with each song instead ebbing and flowing with its own self contained energy. This is said with the benefit of hindsight, but considering where the band would go from here, this became an excellent monument to weirdness within their discography pretty quickly. This is a very loose album, for sure. The one thing holding everything together is Chris Adler's drum performance, which is comparatively extremely tight and paradoxically technical. He throws in little triplet fills all over the place and manages to tie the room together despite being one of the most chaotic elements of the band in a vacuum. I'm sure if you could hear isolated drum tracks somehow, it'd be almost impossible to tell which track you're listening to, he's all over the god damned place.

But really, there's an elephant in the room here, and it's time to address it. Randy Blythe's vocals on this are wildly different from what he'd rise to prominence with... and they're actually the best part of the album. Whereas every album after this he'd feature a very deep roar/shout (more in line with his almost hilariously bassy speaking voice, seriously he talks like fucking Xerxes from 300) on the debut here he features a piercing shriek almost exclusively. Even when he goes deep, he sounds like he's wailing and/or vomiting. It's almost black metal-esque in approach, though it's probably more accurate to compare it to the more emotionally brutal hardcore bands of the 90s. He sounds like a mix of a choking leopard and Chewbacca trying to lose weight for the prom. This vocal performance is really what I think makes New American Gospel so special, because it recontextualizes all of the nasty riffage into something positively ugly. Despite the nearly endless praise I've given this album, it's honestly really hard to listen to, and Randy is a big reason why. Everything is so painful and raw, like he's tearing his own heart out and bleeding all over the floor with each line. It's well known that he was a bona fide semi-functioning alcoholic for most of the band's early era, and it's also well known that he was absolutely fucking hammered when recording this album. From what I understand, he recorded all of his vocal tracks in one day, drunk off his gourd, with no breaks. "Black Label" is famous for having only four real words followed by a bunch of random scat noises that they tried to fit lyrics to afterwards. "Letter to the Unborn" is also pretty infamous for the lyrics being unknown apart from fan guesses thanks to the band refusing to publish them since they were so personal (though it's known that it's about Randy and his wife at the time suffering a miscarriage). It adds so much to that aforementioned raw ugliness of the record, Randy being pissed to his eyes during recording and just being super broken and vulnerable at the time. You don't get that sort of open passion every day, and they never managed to recreate it.

Overall, despite being a tough listen featuring ten tracks of seemingly random screeching noises, I'd actually almost be willing to lay my chips down as this being my favorite Lamb of God album based solely on its consistency. There are no real dips in quality here apart from maaaaybe "Pariah" and "The Black Dahlia" being kinda inconsequential in the grand scheme of things, though the former has an absolutely blistering climax. The groove element that would soon become their bread and butter is here, but it's somewhat hidden underneath layers and layers of screaming madness. "Black Label" has it in spades and "O.D.H.G.A.B.F.E" is presented as an almost Sabbathy dirge of doom riffs, but upon further examination it's just slower groove riffs. Either way, New American Gospel is the biggest black sheep in their discography, in part because it's stylistically closer to their Burn the Priest era than anything else, and ergo is indisputably their most intense record, replete with thrashy discordant hardcore and arguably grindcore influenced blasts of ferocity. It's admittedly a hard listen, with an aversion to catchiness and a severely undercooked production underneath a wailing vocal performance. Honestly though? I wouldn't change a single thing about this album. It's an accidental masterpiece, pure lightning in a bottle that they never came close to recapturing.


Originally written for Lair of the Bastard

Before Lamb of God got good - 15%

Grumpy Cat, April 6th, 2019

There isn't much that needs to be said about Lamb of God in the year 2019, they play a hybrid of groove metal and metalcore, they got pretty popular for awhile and they seem to be the opening act for every leg of Slayer's final (or so they say) world tour, they won a grammy at some point and used to get some play on MTV. Needless to say, if you're a fan of metal, regardless what kind, then you probably have some familiarity with Lamb of God.

Not every notable metal band has a good start though, and Lamb of God's is one of the ones that didn't. Pairing bad production that makes the drums sound clicky and plastic with some really annoying inhale screams this album is questionable from the second it starts. Half the time Randy sounds like a competent vocalist, at other parts it sounds like he's too hung over to even remember that music has keys. Sometimes the leads are cool like right before the breakdown in the opening track, breakdown starts about 1 minute and 40 seconds in if you want to hear that lead, sometimes the leads are buried under neath clicky drums and a chugging rhythm guitar, one thing all the leads have in common though is sounding like Dimebag trying to make a melody out of three notes, and generally the same three notes. Riff wise the album brings a sort of thrashing chug sound that revolves around shifting time signatures to prevent it from getting stagnant, Pariah for example has an exceptionally chuggy riff sounding a bit like "nyuhnyuhnyuh dun dun nyuhnyuhnyuh dun dun dun dun" that sort has that crunchy fast pace sound you would expect from thrash but stripping the whole thing down to just a single finger muted note. The order of the mixing places inhales on top, click drums second, chuggy riffs third, lead guitar fourth and bass underneath the rest, accentuating all of the album's worst musical traits and burying all the redeemable ones. Its supposed to sound raw I suppose, some people like it, I don't.

Anyways, the overall styling leaves a weird album that doesn't really go anywhere. New American Gospel is first and foremost intended to be a hard hitting album, it achieves this, but the secondary stylings don't really work. The precision created by the combined efforts of the drumming and rhythm guitar work is sort of lost due to Randy being utterly unintelligible and seeming to have little voice control. The atmospheric touches the of the lead guitar are buried.

A Very Rough Start - 50%

eletrikk, January 3rd, 2019

New American Gospel is a very, very odd album in my eyes. Instrumentation, vocals, and composition pretty much collide with each other. It sounds as if they were still deciding whether or not to be punk or the abomination that is metalcore. But we end up with an album that is half punk, half metalcore, and a listening experience that is very confusing to try and take in.

To start off, the vocals are very poorly executed by Randy. Throughout the album you can hear his vocals get weaker. Normally vocals get weak over years of touring and album writing, but this is unprecedented. Randy is a strong vocalist and can hold his screams. His previous endeavors with Burn The Priest show his prowess at screaming, and are really well executed. On this album, however, they sound as if he is trying to do a mid-high, if that makes any sense. A good example is Black Label. At the very start of the song, Randy's vocals are held up pretty well, but near the very end his screams become strained, as if Randy had ran out of breath or something to that effect. Thankfully, he was able to ditch the highs that saw him through Burn The Priest for the most part and move onto a better suited mid-range for the rest of his career.

The instrumentation through this album is more or less lackluster. The riffs have tendency to sound like every other band that came out around this time, and this is a huge problem that I have with the record. Some of the songs have a slow intro, some 8th or 16th notes for the main riff, drum fills here and there, and a quick end or a fade out. The drum fills I have no problem with, as Chris Adler is an excellent drummer. Mark and Willie really scraped the bottom of the barrel on this record though. I'll give Willie a break as it really was his first time writing a record, but I've heard much better from Mark. John does a nice job at providing a kind of kick behind the guitars.

The production of this record is alright, but John's bass is mixed in a way that makes it sound a bit springy. The guitars are mixed well and give a really dirty atmosphere that, despite the records lack luster attempt, keeps me hooked for the majority of the record. Despite Randy's poor execution, his vocals are mixed well and don't take up too much space. The drums get me though, and in the wrong way. Chris' snare gives me a really bad St. Anger vibe and puts off the total listening experience. The rest of the drum kit sounds decent, but a little to quiet for my taste. But, as I said earlier, all of these factors clash with each other. The vocals sound and style, that being very punk, clash with the metalcore sounding guitars. The bass compliments the guitars and drums, as it should, but the drums do not compliment the guitars at all. The drumming goes for a very death feel and sounds odd with the metalcore guitars.

The lyrics are definitely one of the pluses on this album, but that really isn't saying much when it's harder to decipher than most other metal acts. Randy's "decipherability" is not bad with his more recent works, but with New American Gospel it is atrocious. That more or less falls back to vocals, not with lyric content. The lyrics on this record are very demeaning of humans, and possibly himself. On track two, "A Warning," the lyricism describes someone, in the first person, as destructive towards people, and for people to stay away from him. It gives a good insight on this person's mentality, and all the songs portray a good scope of the band's mentality. It's such a shame that they were written for such a bad album.

Dull and uninspired - 12%

McTague97, January 22nd, 2015

Do you like how heavy and hard Pantera is? Do you like catchy simple guitar work? Do ideas like substance and technicality seem absurd to you? Are you just looking for something heavy? If the answer to all these questions is yes, then boy you might just enjoy this from front to back, but for those of us with expectations this falls short in MANY ways.

It shares a few of the same issues I generally have, repetition and lack of substance. Its like a Pantera album, they most likely ran out of ideas about halfway through and relied heavily on metal cliches. At least with Pantera though you could tell Dimebag was passionate in his solos and Phil sounded like he wanted to be in that studio. There is absolutely no inspiration in Lamb of God's sound and it sounds like they only had one idea and tried to make a musical blueprint out of it. There is no energy, you can almost hear how bored and emotionally disconnected they all are from it and every track sounds like a big loop. Some guys got together and decided they wanted to make some money making music but they didn't put any emotion, feeling or energy into it and they decided they had better things to do than write songs. You could listen to any generic half groove half metalcore band and get better then this, Hatebreed, Throwdown, take your pick.

Randy Blythe is a terrible vocalist, imagine Phil Anselmo's screams mixed with metalcore pseudo growls and you have an exact recreation of what he's trying to do and it just sounds god awful. Now mix that with the fact that he's so drunk that he's usually noodling around hoping to stumble across the correct key by pure chance. As if that wasn't lousy enough there is no way I could have understood a single word coming out of his mouth, when matching it with a lyric booklet it still doesn't add up. Not that the lyrics matter, its generic 'fight the power, authority=bad' kind of stuff, you've heard it before and you've heard it in much better words from much better vocalists.

Besides absolute tedium that is as bad as performances get, everything else; bass, guitars and drums, are set on grooving, the bass didn't stand out and was probably mixed out. The drums were mostly mid tempo and simple basic rock beats occasionally speeding up to sound 'br00tal'. One guitar played grooves, the kind of stuff Dimebag would come up with in 3 seconds and throw away because he felt they were insipid or the guys from Meshuggah would scrap because it wasn't bhao whao whao whao enough for them. The other guitar sticks to one note chugging. Chugga chugga chugga... if you are expecting a choo choo you'll never get one. Occasionally they try to throw together three notes to sound like a melody but if becomes blatantly clear they give up before the melody even comes forth. Add some generic breakdowns and you have the gist of every track.

The worst part though is that even in comparison to lower grade groove metal it still falls short. The guitar work is not catchy at all, hell its not even slightly memorable. By the time your done the whole thing will have felt like a wall of chugging and trying to remember a single riff that stood out will prove challenging. It literally cannot even fill the most basic goals and expectations of the genre.

It could have one redeeming factor though, which is pure force and heaviness. Keyword is could though because whoever mastered the production decided to strip it of any rawness and power. Good job, you took what would have already been a divisive and controversial metal release and made it into something that even the most simple minded metalheads who drool at the mere idea of a heavy groove will poke at with a stick before listening (I really don't mean to bag on the fan base at all).

New American Boredom - 29%

The_Ghoul, June 18th, 2014
Written based on this version: 2000, CD, Prosthetic Records

I have a philosophy that might strike some as being petty, but it's something I rigidly adhere to: whoever owns the keys to the car or the keys to the house has veto power of the music. Such a philosophy lead me to be listening to Lamb of God's supposedly most "death metal" album whilst sitting in the passenger's seat of a friend of mine. However, I attempted to like it. That's kind of the second part of that philosophy: whoever is in the passenger's seat or a guest will try to enjoy whatever is being played. So I tried my best to enjoy New American Gospel, preparing myself for brutal breakdowns, vicious drums, cutting guitars, and barked vocals.

I didn't get what I had hoped for, and then some; I have not, in a long while, heard a more monotonous affair than New American Gospel. I don't know if the rest of Lamb of God's material is equally bland, but let me describe what this album has in store for the potential listener. I found drums that seemed to vary from mid-paced idling on the double bass with that ever so cliche' tuned-ever-so-high snare drum occasionally joining in, to slow narcolepsy-inducing breakdown section, with nothing that pushes the engine even past 3000 rpm. The guitars try their hardest, though, to deliver a fit of aggression deserving of the half angsty/half tuff guy lyrics, but by golly they seem to just get mired in this morass of chugging and tritones, delivering one soulless and meandering riff after another. They try, sweating and plunking away at the strings, oh these guitarists try, but the riffs never seem to rise above the level of mildly perturbed, much less pissed off or raging. I mean, even considering that this is half groove metal/half metalcore with a tinge of grindcore influence, and adjusting my expectations accordingly, it still can't help but seem like these folks are acting like a third-tier band at best. These riffs literally annoy and frustrate me with their level of retardation and tedium, and even if it's just the sluggishness of the drums rubbing off, it still makes listening to this album hard.

Don't rely on Blythe's vocals to redeem this mess, because he delivers probably the most monotonous, droll, and useless performance here out of all the members, "rawr rawr rawr"-ing (I mean that in the worst way possible) his way through the songs without changing up his rhythm or pitch, because no, that would mean deviating from this tough guy act he has going. I mean I guess it fits in with the whole "let's be super repetitive" thing this band has going, but god his voice gets annoying after a couple minutes. It's like Blythe feels he has discovered the perfect vocal rhythm and delivery style, just as the guitarists feel they have discovered the perfect riff, and is committed to writing only variations and permutations on that one rhythm or that one riff. Same goes for the drums, except he uses 3 basic types of beats, which is better, I guess, than Blythe, who uses only one style. Either way, there are hardly enough ideas on this album for an EP, let alone a full length album. Leave this album to the newbs and 14 year olds who think they're super badass, seeing as there is so much better out there, even in the creativity-starved world of -core.

Too plastered to even get to the pulpit. - 38%

hells_unicorn, August 2nd, 2012

Lamb Of God tends to be a popular subject of discussion amongst younger fans of metal, or at least that has been my experience. Constant references to them as being drawn from a death metal sound, particularly with regards to their earliest material kept coming up, thus prompting both a sense of skepticism and curiosity in me for what was actually going on with this band back in 2000. Upon learning that the band used to go by the name Burn The Priest (a more appropriate title for the alleged sub-genre affiliation), and also finding out that there was some grindcore influences going on in their 90s material, it became clear where the death metal comparisons were coming from.

Many laud this band’s debut “New American Gospel” as being their most intense, but many more seem to disown it as a botched first attempt, and in a sense both parties have the right idea. This is an album that is defined literally by how heavy it tries to be, pulling out a veritable arsenal of Pantera, early Machine Head, Meshuggah and trace amounts of NYDM influences here and there, mostly in the instrumental department. The riff work gets a bit busy in a thrashing, chaotic fashion on parts of “Letter To The Unborn” that is mildly reminiscent of Malevolent Creation, while the closing long song “O.D.H.G.A.B.F.E.” throws in a bluesy sounding Black Sabbath-styled riff with a strong dose of Southern attitude ala Pantera. However, most of what is heard on here guitar-wise tends to stagnate in moderately intricate chug groove territory, getting monotonous after the first couple songs, and relies heavily on the drums (which are pretty dry and flat sounding) to keep things interesting.

While mostly a straight-forward groove album with a few extreme twists here and there, this thing really crashes and burns in the vocal department. Its common knowledge that vocalist Randy Blythe was hitting the bottle to the point of feeling no pain during the recording sessions for this album, and boy does he showcase what happens when someone can’t hold their liquor. Right from the beginning of “Black Label” (named for Blythe’s favorite brand of daddy’s cough medicine) the random barks and shrieks that are largely remnants from the death/grind aspects of Burning The Priest” are amounting to little more than unintelligible gibberish. Normally this wouldn’t be an issue for a grind-infused offering, but the rhythmic precision that should always come with a non-discernible series of gurgles and shouts is not to be found here, rendering an otherwise fairly tight musical arrangement into a garbled mess.

Perhaps the biggest mistake I made in approaching this band was going to the very beginning, and most who are generally drawn towards the modern, metalcore-like character of this band’s later offerings should steer clear of this album, along with anyone who might be receptive to the band’s more extreme past prior to taking the LOG moniker. In spite of all the cliché Pantera trappings lifted right off “Far Beyond Driven” and occasional references to the goofy atmospherics of “Burn My Eyes”, this is a style that can be pulled off reasonably well. But it definitely didn’t happen here.

Very Shaky Start for a Fantastic Band - 70%

Mc_Metal_95, October 31st, 2011

The very first time I heard this album, I swore it was a completely different band. I had only recently become a LOG fan and was only familiar with Lamb of God post-Ashes of the Wake, and when my ears were exposed to the very first Lamb of God album, I was not a fan of it by any means. The production was paper thin, the drums (even though the playing was phenomenal) sounded like cardboard, the guitars sounded like they were recorded through a wall, and the vocals... well... haha. I flat out hated it. But as time progressed, I began to fall deeply in love with Lamb of God, and so I thought it was time I put all opinions aside and give New American Gospel one last go. My thoughts this time around were much better than before, so lets get this god damned review on the road.

The album starts off with the absolute crusher of an opener, "Black Label", with pounding guitars, drums, and bass. Its definitely a mosh pit favourite. It's also one of the best off the album. The only thing that lets the track down is the horrible roaring coming from vocalist Randy Blythe, apparently recorded the whole way through stone cold drunk. The next two tracks, "A Warning" and "In the Absence of the Sacred", are absolutely fucking great. "A Warning", just like "Black Label", explodes out of nowhere and really announces itself. It also features a blast beat, played furiously by drummer Chris Adler. "In the Absence of the Sacred" is my personal favourite off the record with the band giving it 100% all the way through and for once I can actually bare Randy's vocals which seem very fitting to the song.

After such a solid opening, this is where the album takes a turn for the worst. While not a bad song, "Letter to the Unborn" just plods along sounding quite uninspired and just another run-of-the-mill extreme metal song, as do "The Black Dahlia" and "The Subtle Arts of Murder and Persuasion". Descending further down the trail of mediocrity is "Terror and Hubris in the House of Frank Pollard", containing guest vocals from the album's producer, Today is the Day's guitarist/vocalist Steve Austin. To be frank, the vocals are horrible. They're shrill and extremely high pitched, but on the bright side they make Blythe's screaming sound amazing in comparison.

The last third of the album really ends the album in an extremely positive light. "Pariah", a song about a run-in Randy had with his friend (who was a drug addict), is a perfect addition to any Lamb of God concert set. Well performed by the band throughout. "Confessional" follows in the same light, rocking hard with the band giving their all. The album closer "O.D.H.G.A.B.F.E (Officer Dick Head Gets a Black Fucking Eye)" not only holds the title for best song title ever, but is a fantastic album closer.

Lamb of God's 2000 debut album, New American Gospel, starts off fantastically only to be let down by a weak middle and then a great last portion. While not the greatest album, New American Gospel introduced the whole world to Lamb of God, we embraced them, and they embraced us five albums and countless shows later. Lamb of God have proved that they are here to stay. Whether we like it or not.

Overall: 7/10

Production:

Well, it's pretty damn piss poor, but the band/producer did what they could with the amount of money and the amount of time they had (which wasn't much). The guitars are paper thin and the drums, in particular the snare drum, sound horrible. The bass is inaudible. Randy's vocals are the only part of the album that sounds mildly professionally-recorded. However, this doesn't stop the band from performing brilliantly.

Overall: 4/10

Individual Performances:

CHRIS ADLER (drums): fantastic from beginning to end and never a dull moment listening to him drum. A hugely important element to Lamb of God's success.

10/10

MARK MORTON/ WILLIE ADLER (guitars): fantastic performance as well from Mark and Willie while some riffs on Gospel... seem to be very stock/run-of-the-mill guitar riffs. They were and still are giving guitarists everywhere a run for their money.

9/10

JOHN CAMPBELL (bass): it's almost impossible to review a bass performance when the instrument is barely audible.

?/10

RANDY BLYTHE (vocals): compared to other LOG releases, his performance here is by far my least favourite. He seems to fail to produce notes. Just simple noise. He has improved greatly over the following albums, and I can see nothing but improvement from here on in.

4/10

Their most br00tal release. - 37%

IWP, February 9th, 2008

So this is where Lamb of God (formally known as Burn the Priest) started out. It actually took me a little while to get into Lamb of God, and once I did, I realized that they're actually pretty good. At the time, I had their new album Sacrament. Shortly, there after. I bought Ashes of the Wake which was also pretty decent. Then, I heard buzz about this album being the best. Knowing that, I deceided to get this album expecting to hear some more great riffs. This album does indeed have riffs, and it's quite heavy as well. However, there's just two little problems thta this album has.

1.Randy fucking sucks on this album! It sounds like he's just screaming randomly during these songs. And his voice gets very annoying, especially after the first couple of songs. I've always wondered why this band has been labled as metalcore, and now I know why. There is a lot of metalcore and hardcore influence on this album. Randy's annoying screaming and the breakdowns make this sound a lot like a metalcore album. Thank god, they would ditch this style by Ashes of the Wake and just go for a straight-up post-thrash sound.

2.The lack of variety, and solos also make this album very unlistenable. Every song is heavy as fuck, but that's all they are. There's no othe qualities that the album has. It's not catchy, it's not very interesting, nor is it even very hard to play. The formula gets very irritating to the point where you want to kill some babies. Hell, Unearth can even do better than this. At least they have melody, and awesome solos for a metalcore band.

However, there is one listenable though not very good song on here. That being Black Label. It's nice and heavy, and the riffs fucking slay. Though, the vocals kind of butcher it a little. It's the best song on the album, though that's not saying much considering how the rest of the album is complete utter garbage. If you want to hear some good Lamb of God, get their newer albums, because they've certainly improved their sound drastically since then. Whoever says that this is better than Sacrament or Ashes is a fool. nuff said. Avoid this album at all cost.

Why musicians should be sober during recording - 45%

enshinkarateman, February 9th, 2008

Black Label be damned. Apparently, the first song on Lamb of God’s “New American Gospel” was named after vocalist Randy Blythe’s drink of choice, and he was dead drunk when he recorded the vocals. And it’s a damn shame he was, because he almost ruins an otherwise listenable album.

The songs themselves are decent, but Randy’s indecipherable screaming is just irritating. Some songs you can get past it (“Black Label”, “In The Absence of the Sacred”, “Pariah”), but the majority of the album is a chore to listen to.

Not just because of the vocals, mind you. The drum sound is atrocious, with the double-bass having the dreaded “cardboard” sound. The drumming itself is fantastic, but the sound transformation it underwent during the producing stage killed it. Pity. The bass is good and audible, but usually doesn’t stand out much, save for the beginning of “Confessional”, which also features impressive drumming from Chris Adler.

Which brings us to the guitarists. I do not understand modern metal’s problem with solos. Sure, there’s a solo in “Letter to the Unborn”, and some interesting guitarwork in “Terror and Hubris in the House of Frank Pollard”, and “The Subtle Arts of Murder and Persuasion”, but really, for a band claiming to be “Pure American Metal”, there are simply not enough solos. Sure, the riffs are good, but, as the old saying goes “Man does not live on riff alone”, or something like that. The lack of solos are one reason as to why I would say “New American Gospel” is more of a hardcore album than a metal album, in addition to the slew of breakdowns and screaming vocals.

One thing that is outstanding about New American Gospel is the lyrics of Randy Blythe. His unconventional vocabulary makes for a refreshing change from the seemingly-juvenile “I hate everything” lyrics of your typical metalcore/hardcore band. Another positive thing about "New American Gospel" is the appearance of Today is the Day’s Steve Austin in “Terror and Hubris on the House of Frank Pollard.” His “duet” with Randy makes for a disturbing atmosphere, and Austin’s vocal delivery makes it possible to follow along with the lyrics printed in the booklet, which is a very appreciated change from Blythe's enigmatic howling.

Overall, Lamb of God miss the mark due to horrible vocals, lack of solos, and atrocious production. If Lamb of God went back and rerecorded “New American Gospel”, then maybe it would earn a passing grade. In the meantime, I recommend you pick up “Ashes of the Wake”, of you want Lamb of God at their peak.

Highlights: Black Label, Pariah, O.D.H.G.A.B.F.E., Letter to the Unborn

An Exercise in Tedium - 21%

DrOctavia, May 4th, 2007

Let me start off by saying that I have tried, quite hard, to like this album. I bought it having had Lamb of God repeatedly recommended to me by a couple of friends, one in particular whose musical tastes I tend to agree with. I had heard a couple of songs by them, such as “Laid to Rest” and “Omerta” from Ashes of the Wake and they seemed pretty good. And so I flushed some cash down the proverbial pooper, by buying the reissue of this now well-known metalcore band’s debut, New American Gospel. Now, I’m not a big metalcore fan by any stretch of the imagination. I find that most metalcore bands have pretty unoriginal leanings in most departments: riffs, drums, vocals, lyrics, etc. But I’ve also never been one to completely discount a genre based on a few bad experiences, and given the fact that this CD came so recommended, I thought I couldn’t really go wrong with this one. Unfortunately for me, this proved not to be true. New American Gospel serves as little more than a dais from which one can vividly witness the malady that has plagued metalcore since its very foundation: mediocrity.

When I first planted this CD in my stereo, my initial reaction was, well, satisfied. I wasn’t floored by any means, but the impression I got from the first track, “Black Label”, was a positive one. The song started off with a heavy riff, backed by some nice drum work. That can, in fact, pretty much sum up this song. I found that Randall Blythe’s indecipherable shrieks didn’t really add much, but they were tolerable (besides, it’s not like the lyrics are well-written enough to be anything I really wanted to hear). I liked the palm-muted heaviness that this track had in spades, and I could easily see myself moshing to it live. It wasn’t a bad start, so I was interested to see what else LOG had in store.

Regrettably, they blew all their ideas on the opening track, because you know what? THE ENTIRE FUCKING ALBUM SOUNDS LIKE THAT. Yeah, that’s right, for 41 minutes and 33 seconds (longer, if you bought the reissue, like me) you’re force-fed the SAME GODDAMN PALM-MUTED RIFFS OVER AND OVER AND OVER AND OVER. This album is like an exercise in auditory endurance. The CIA probably used this as a form of sonic torment on prisoners, imitating Chinese water-torture but on an aural level. After less than ten minutes you find yourself praying for a solo to save you from the sheer tedium, and one might blissfully appear for a span of two seconds, only to be cruelly snatched away long before you can appreciate it. No wonder Blythe was piss drunk when he recorded this, it was probably the only way he could cope with the intense ennui that this album provokes. As for the rest of the band, they must have been wearing some form of hearing protection or another, I can’t think of any other way for them to have played such an intensely soul-draining exercise in boredom. Perhaps the only minor relief from this bleak expanse of uninspired drivel comes with the song “Terror and Hubris in the House of Frank Pollard”. Really the only thing that makes this track any different from the rest is the fact that it features something of an introductory solo, and that the producer sings, giving a much needed break from Blythe’s insipid growling. Sure, it’s still a pretty shitty track, but when you’re dying of thirst in the Sahara, you take whatever source of moisture you can, be it an effervescent oasis, or a stinking, steaming wet pile of camel dung (sorry for that image, but it’s a fitting metaphor for an album as appalling as this). Goddamn this is awful!

But hold on, we’ve still yet to go through more cookie-cutter songs, like the “kill me now” agony that is “Pariah” and let’s not forget the fifty seconds of repetitive “DUH-DUH-DUH-DUH- TING!”, drumming that starts off “Confessional” before it bursts into another one of those relatively fast, but derivative, “haven’t I heard this before?” riffs. And, of course, who can forget the finale, O.D.H.G.A.B.F.E., which supposedly stands for “Officer Dick Head Gets A Black Fucking Eye”. Can you feel the creativity at work here? In the words of a million uneducated anti-authoritarian nimrods, “FIGHT THA POWA DOOD!!!” Aside from the pathetic excuse for a title, the song features equally cliché, pseudo-revolutionist lyrics (not that you’ll be able to understand them, unless you actually go to the trouble of looking them up in the liner notes). And ya gotta love that final line, “Auschwitz Kent State Chi-Town 68 Tiananmen Waco”. Congratulations, Randy! You actually paid attention in history class! Too bad you failed English because you never could get proper grammar, syntax, or basic predicates! But here, I’ll stuff a sucker in your gob if you’ll just agree to close it for five goddamn minutes!

And with that, we end this auditory abortion of an album (at least if you have the regular version). If you have the reissue, you might consider listening to the Japanese bonus track, as it possesses some odd, almost indefinable qualities that distinguish it from the rest of this tripe. Or perhaps it’s simply the knowledge that I can comfortably turn my stereo off, knowing that I have endured all the unmitigated excrement that those who bought this album upon its initial release had to suffer through, and that now I can sympathize with those unfortunate people. Either way, it’s over, and we hath endured. Congratulations if you actually managed to sit through the whole 40+ minutes of this garbage. You might find yourself stronger for it. Or traumatized. Whatever. Personally, I’ll be fine knowing that this album will sit, gathering dust in my collection for many a year, perhaps forever, now that I have fulfilled my duty of listening to it one last time so that I might warn the uninitiated. Or perhaps I’ll give it to one of my friends who likes the band. I can pretty much guarantee that they haven’t heard this one, or they’d be off Lamb of God faster than Rosie O’Donnell off a diet.

Conclusion: When most people, or rather, those who are uneducated in anything but mainstream bands, talk about Lamb of God, they invariably say, “Well, they’re like, so heavy…” Yeah, they’re heavy all right, but what the hell is that worth without any decent songwriting to back it up? I can write a “heavy” riff in a second, just using some basic palm-muted power chords, and if this album is any indication, this would seem to be the exact way this band writes all of their music. There is little room for originality, creativity, or actual coherence on this record. There is simply that which this band seems to worship above all else: the almighty HEAVINESS, to the exclusion of anything enjoyable. The songs on here might be bearable in small doses, but one cannot reasonably expect to go through an entire sitting of this and be actually engaged by the music. This album does little but fulfill the age-old stereotype that defines metal to the masses: it’s really loud. And so, I can really only give you one simple word of advice, fellow metalhead: AVOID.

This isn't what I expected. - 65%

ThrashingMetal, November 25th, 2006

I bought this album due to all the hype I heard from various sources. It's even been referred to as "Death metal". The problem is that this album isn't what's it's hyped up to be. I bought the 'remastered' version and on the inlay there's a speech about how poor the conditions were in recording this record: Randy was drunk the whole time, they only had a very short time-frame to record, and Randy had to do the vocals in like 1 session. All of this adds up to mostly negatives with very little positives.


The vocals are absolutely terrible. On "Black Label" the lead singer [Randy] isn't even saying anything audible except 5 words IF you listen very closely with the lyrics in hand. It doesn't help when isn't even saying the correct words on "A Warning": "I'll suck you down and drag you dry!", but on the demo he says what the lyrics say; "I'll drag you down and suck you dry!" I can see some slurring due to his apparent alchohol consumption, but these lyrics are really bad. Most songs require to have the lyrics close by, and even still you're only gonna make out half of the lyrics IF you're listening intently.


The guitars and drums on here are saves the album from being totally lost. They are pretty heavy, and prove that this album is more crushing then their later Groove metal albums. Unfortunately, 'crushing' isn't enough to salvage this album. The drums sometimes are so loud that they make a popping noise even on low volume levels, and the guitars aren't anything spectacular compared to current-day Metalcore bands. It's basically crushing music, but mediocre at the same time. Strong but normal I suppose.


I reccomend this album to anybody who is a really dedicated fan of Lamb of God. Otherwise, steer clear of this one and don't fall into the hype. As most albums go, buy the opposite of what people tell you. If you don't give a shit about lyrics, then maybe you'll enjoy this one, but most of the music just isn't really spectacularly different from any other Metalcore album.

Certainly one of the best metalcore albums. - 90%

AzzMan, April 2nd, 2004

The one way to summarize an album like this, is to just start headbanging.

Being one of the bands (and albums) that lead the Metalcore genre today, Lamb of God (and NAG) have outdone themselves here. On a good day I can just listen to this album and say "Well hell, screw "True" metalheads, this owns." Others I put it on, put on my game face >:{ and headbang. The album truely has thrashy elements to it, like in the drumming.

The drumming is more than solid, it's just fucking great. Its fast, powerful, its creative and it even includes fucking double bass riffs. Not that other bands don't build upon their drumming, and make it so the drumming is complex but follows a pattern.. but here it really feels like their drummer is riffing. This guy.. owns.

Vocally the album kills, too. Randy was probably my first role model in vocals, and because of the evil strength in his voice. He sings deep, which seems to be something seen rarely in metalcore. Where it is populated with half-growls, we get actual growling vocals. Where the genre includes talking, we get higher pitched screams. Not like screams, but more like metalcore's version of black vox. Its sinister, it really is.

The riffs are pretty fast, and create a nice, headbangable environment. This shit isn't pure thrash, but it creates a good feel like it. At some spots the speed drops and they go for a heavier atmosphere, but it works just as well. It all comes out sounding really good, especially for metalcore.

Bass lines aren't few nor far between. Creating a, yet again, distinctive feel, they hold everything together with deep noises and while not as fast or hard as the guitar riffs, they do their job and create a hold over anything sloppy to make it sound good.

In my time listening to this album, I've yet to find one problem with it, exept maybe the fact that every one of my friends calls me a "goth" for it. That's not a problem wiht the album, though. The only TRUE problems that anyone might care about, is that in spots the songs aren't as clear as they could be, for one reason or another. Maybe a few bits of the main riff of a song dosn't sound perfect, but nothing is.

Bottem line: get it. Now.

A kick in the face - 87%

Egregius, February 23rd, 2004

Woa, a band with their own sound. Of course I could say this for their Burn The Priest album as well, but as Lamb of God they've really marked off their own corner in musicland with New American Gospel.

Their sound has become thicker (less thick than on the later 'As the Palaces Burn'), and also more accurate. No more occasional smudgy buzz-riffs as with BtP, but razorsharp precision riffing, semi-staccato or otherwize, and accompanying drums and vocals. These guys know exactly what they're doing: they're delivering a kick in the face with remarkable self-contained violence.

Speaking of the drums: Ye Gods! Chris Adler can DRUM! This guy can drum amazingly tight and well-timed. Drum-riffs are actually used as a seperate niche in the sound. Sometimes I'd almost say he was actually converting thrash-metal guitarriffs to polyrythmic drum-patterns. The drumssound isn't meaty at all, it's more 'tock-tock-tik-tock'-esque, but this means the overall sound comes out well instead of being drowned by thumping drums. At any rate, this guy keeps surprising me with the way he drums. Often staccato, and very varied, it really builds out the guitar-sound, sometimes throwing in odd timing signatures.

Then the vocals, razor-sharp high-mid range growly shrieks, often follow the rythm of the music (which is odd for vocals). I can't make out most of the lyrics this way, but Blythe's vocals sound menacing. He doesn't sound angry, or enraged, but violent.

If I had to list top-songs, I'd be giving a tracklisting minus 'A Warning' and 'Pariah', but I'll list 'The Subtle Arts of Murder and Persuasion' and 'Confessional' as 'personal most favorite'.

This is an album I intensely enjoy (if that much wasn't obvious from the review), as almost every song has elements I particularly like, and Lamb of God's sound has me in awe. The only possible quip with this album would be that not every song sounds totally different from the others, as there are common elements, but that's minor since the basis is excellent anyway, and I'm sooner thirsting for more than less.

horns up - 95%

ironasinmaiden, December 30th, 2002

Somewhere on the sonic spectrum between Meshuggah and Pantera (w/ some Malevolent Creation thrown in for good measure), VA's crushing Lamb of God have big things ahead if 2000's New American Gospel is any indicator. Barbed wire guitar riffs, constantly shifting time signatures, and a singer whose voice brings to mind any number of wild animals make NAG one of the heaviest discs I own.

Black Label kicks off with one of those riffs that makes you go "oh shit what's gonna happen next" and ends up being a relentless barrage of intensity (the story of this album). LoG focus more of the rhythmic aspects of the guitars (which are produced as raw as they come), but when leads do appear (Terror/Hubris) they are damn good. There is a strong Meshuggah influence no doubt -- check out that Future Breed Machine riff during In the Absence of the Sacred, but not enough to prevent LoG from forging their own style of brutality.

I must say that Randall Blythe's vocals are the most ridiculous in metal. At times they barely sound HUMAN, and you can hear the force put behind them, always a plus. There are no power ballads in Lamb of God... this is just pure 100% HEAVY FUCKING METAL through and through.

The only song I couldn't dig on was the last one, a sort of sludge/NOLA groove dirge thing ala Crowbar that stretches on way too long. They should of used the japanese bonus track, Nippon, cos that song FUCKING CRUSHES. So in conclusion, if you like metal heavy and enjoy the modern breed of intense bands, you'll be all over Lamb of God. Now let's cross are fingers and hope Devin Townshend (who's producing their new album) won't destroy their sound like he did with Soilwork.