#shadows fall

Wildcat, don’t we have a kids’ table in storage somewhere?

Jonathan Donais!

(Shadows Fall, Anthrax solo-guitarist)

“Harbinger!” Shepard shouted, taking aim at another drone. “Better send something interesting, or I’m going to get bored!” A drone on the platform began to glow. Garrus watched Shepard take aim at it with a smirk. “You cannot stop us,” Harbinger said. Shepard’s shotgun barked, the drone staggered, but it continued, “We are your genetic destiny. Witness your future.” The drone’s arm raised even as it began to turn to ash. ~ The Collector ship. Things go awry, even when they go mostly to plan.

https://archiveofourown.org/works/60975412/chapters/208533336

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Mayhem Fest 2010| July 11, 2010| Shoreline Amphitheater, Mountain View, California.

Norma Jean

Winds of Plague

Chimaira

Shadows Fall

3 Inches of Blood

Hatebreed

Lamb of God: New America Gospel (2000)

Perhaps more than any other band, Lamb of God were well positioned to be harbingers for the New Wave of American Heavy Metal, which signaled the genre's long-awaited commercial comeback, following a trying 1990s.

Why, even their debut album, 2000's New American Gospel (I'm ignoring an earlier effort released when the band was still named Burn the Priest), alluded to renewal, and did so far more convincingly than the nu-metal bands then dominating headlines.

Now, said album is celebrating a quarter-century and the group has added another nine (ten, if you count another Burn the Priest LP in 2018) to remain a vital force in heavy metal's march through the 21st Century, but we're not looking forward today, but backward.

As I wrote in Loudwire many years ago, New American Gospel was something of a bridge between Burn the Priest's unresolved post-thrash, post-death metal experimenting and the groove-laden sonic signature of future Lamb of God albums.

Similarly, frontman Randy Blythe was still finding his voice and would eventually replace mostly one-dimensional barks for a greater (if no less harsh) emotional range -- much like his band sorted through their influences to partly fill the groove metal void left by Pantera.

Indeed, select cuts like "In the Absence of the Sacred," "Letter to the Unborn," and "The Subtle Arts of Murder and Persuasion" revealed LoG's debt to Dimebag's merry bunch by freely alternating both thrash metal velocity and sluggish metalcore breakdowns.

Meanwhile, highlights like "Black Label," "Pariah," and the amusingly named "Terror and Hubris in the House of Frank Pollard" (featuring guest shrieks from Today is the Day's Steve Austin) showed promising signs of the band's developing personality.

By and large, the most common criticism leveled at the album regarded Chris Adler's flat, ultra-dry drum sound, which he later blamed on the band's extremely limited studio time (just seven days!) and which was remixed for reissues such as this one.

But, all things considered, New American Gospel delivered its sermon with a fury and confidence that won Lamb of God an immediate following among metal fans starved for something other than what Korn, Slipknot, and their minions could supply.

Non-stop touring did the rest (I first saw LoG at CBGB's during CMJ 2002!) and helped consolidate the band's fledgling support base, then '03's excellent As the Palaces Burn shifted even more units for independent Prosthetic Records.

So much so that Prosthetic partnered with major label Epic to supercharge promotional efforts behind '04's Ashes of the Wake, and, as a result, both LoG and the booming N.W.O.A.H.M. were on their way.

☆Sleep Token

☆Bad Omens

☆Motionless In White

☆Bring Me The Horizon

☆Black Veil Brides

☆Pierce The Veil

☆Machine Head

☆Avenged Sevenfold

☆Slipknot

☆Shadows Fall

☆System Of A Down

☆My Chemical Romance

☆Fall Out Boy

☆Sleeping With Sirens

☆TX2

☆Set It Off

☆CORPSE

☆Ricky Montgomery

☆Arctic Monkeys

☆Nico Collins

☆Mom Jeans

☆9arelyhuman

☆Blink-182

☆Landon Barker

☆MICO

☆Haiden Henderson

☆Dutch Melrose