Lamb of God’s Chris Adler Opines on What Band’s Next Album May Sound Like
By the time Lamb of God’s next album comes out it will have been something in the neighborhood of four years since their last, Resolution, released in January of 2012. That’s a long wait by Lamb of God standards (although they’ve sure got a great excuse!), but I propose that instead of being bummed by their long absence we be stoked: more downtime means more riffs in the can, which in turn means the five Virginians can choose only the very best of all they’ve written to release to us, the patient public. Add to that fire the fuel of all the pent up aggression these guys must be feeling from all they’ve been through, plus an entire year’s worth of inactivity… and here’s to hoping LoG’s next is their fiercest in some time.
Drummer Chris Adler recently gave an interview to SiriusXM DJ Jose Mangin [transcribed by Blabbermouth], and shared a bit of intel about how songwriting is coming along:
It’s great. I guess the thing that I was overwhelmed with was the idea of us taking the year off of 2014 and then have us come together basically around now and start putting things together. But, as usual, everybody is a little antsy and wanting to jam, and it wasn’t, like, oh, hey, Willie [Adler, guitar] has an idea and Mark [Morton, guitar] has this kinda cool solo thing he wants to add on top of it. Both of these guys came in with about fifty different song ideas. So what’s been great is just going through all these ideas, which are all really good, and being able to say, ‘Okay, we have this much material. Let’s pick the top 10 or top 15 or 20, and just keep working on that. Then they get upset, because number 42 had their favorite part. So, okay, grab that favorite part from 42 and let’s make song 6 way better. So it’s been that kind of a process as we go along.
I’ve noticed the guys are really writing the kind of stuff that I find myself kind of… I don’t know… I don’t wanna say ‘singing along,’ because there’s no vocals on them yet, but the melodies of the ideas really stick with me, which is one of the things that, if I were to ever complain about more of the recent stuff that I’ve been buying music-wise… It’s great while I’m listening to it, I’m impressed, it’s over my head, it blows me away, but when I’m done with it, I couldn’t tell you how it goes.
Our goal is, you know, that the guys that’ll write the songs that stick with you are the guys that are gonna stick around. So I’m really impressed with what these guys have been doing on a songwriting level — stepping it up and writing stuff that kinda sticks with you.
So that sounds promising, yeah? If they’re just now starting to assemble ideas, an end-of-2015 release seems possible, although I wouldn’t be surprised if we don’t hear new LoG until 2016. We’ll have to wait and see how it all comes together.
Meanwhile, I just decided to put on 2009’s Wrath for the first time in a long while. I remember it feeling like something of a let-down following 2006’s game-changing Sacrament, but on re-listen I find myself singalong with every riff — this is a super-solid record. Hopefully Morton and Adler can summon some of their past mojo this time around.
