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Secondo lavoro per i Lamb of God, gruppo magari non molto originale, ma che ha saputo guadagnarsi un ottimo seguito di fan grazie all'innegabile potenza distruttiva che riescono a generare in particolare batteria e voce.
E infatti accompagneranno gli Slayer nell'Unholy Alliance Tour di quest'anno. E proprio gli Slayer sono la primissima influenza che traspare dai loro brani, con riff stoppati in quantità industriale pensati apposta per headbanging furiosi e trame melodiche il cui scopo non è certo quello di alleggerire l'impatto sonoro, ma anzi di dare un effetto "drammatico" al tutto.
"As the Palaces Burn" (AtPB) può essere considerato un affinamento del carattere già presente nel debutto "American Gospel" le cui potenzialità verranno decisamente messe in luce nell'ultimo "Ashes of the Wake", ma personalmente lo considero inferiore al primo lavoro. "AtPB" infatti, pur constando di brani memorabili e riproposti sempre in sede live, pecca di ripetitività.
Il disco si apre con "Ruin", brano slayerano tiratissimo forte di un inizio esplosivo (accompagnato da un urlo disumano) e un finale composto da un'accelerazione e un brusco rallentamento (bisogna sottolineare chei cambi di tempo improvvisi nei LoG sono un marchio di fabbrica), segue di getto la title-track, pezzo breve ma che racchiude un assolo inatteso, mentre il quarto brano "11th Hour" si distingue per una costruzione anomala e un ritornello decisamente azzeccato forte di un accordo armonico intervallato al ritmo stoppato.
Il resto dell'album si attesta su un livello buono ma non eccezionale, e tra tracce francamente simili e a tratti anonime, si può ricordare "In Defence Of Our Good Name" per la splendida accelerazione a metà, "Blood Junkie" in cui alla fine compare un famoso riff riutilizzato meglio nell'album seguente (il riff "blblblblblb" come l'ha definito il chitarrista in un'intervista...!) e la conclusiva "Vigil" che parte con un tranquillo arpeggio spezzato dalla suadente voce del cantante e da un finale a velocità turbo in cui la batteria dà il meglio di sè.
Consigliato solo a chi ha già ascoltato e apprezzato l'ultimo "Ashes of the Wake", per gli ascoltatori occasionali invece, obiettivamente credo si possa anche farne a meno.
Elenco tracce testi e video
01 Ruin (03:55)
The knowledge that seeking the favor of another
Means the murder of self.
This is the resolution
The end of all progress
The death of evolution
It bleeds all life away.
Silence speeds the path to your streams of solace that run so few and narrow.
Brooks that babble the sounds of torture.
You will one day rise
To flood the banks of the chosen.
This is the art of ruin.
This is the resolution
The end of all progress
The death of evolution
It bleeds all life away.
I will show you all that I have mastered
Fear. Pain. Hatred. Power.
This is the art of ruin.
02 As the Palaces Burn (02:26)
The fiends have gagged a generation of pacified fools
Bound by our greed a nation enslaved as corporate tools.
Arise and race the legacy of their lies
To realize that this in itself is an ascension
Towards the day we revolt.
As the seeds you've cast away take hold
War will be born.
Rejoice, the age of the fall has begun
We'll dance as the palaces burn.
A shot gun blast into the face of deceit
You'll gain your just reward.
We'll not rest until the purge is complete
You will reap what you've sown.
My redemption lies in your demise.
In such a world as this does one dare to think for himself?
The paradox of power and peace will destroy itself
To know the truth and live in fear of no man.
To realize that this in itself is an ascension
Toward the day we revolt.
As the seeds you've cast away take hold
War will be born.
Rejoice, the age of the fall has begun
We'll dance as the palaces burn.
My redemption lies in your demise.
Rejoice, the age of the fall has begun.
We'll dance as the palaces burn.
03 Purified (03:10)
Can the pestilence within you be bled out
May I have the honor of this amputation?
Know that you have made an enemy
To show you the meaning of indignity
I live now solely for the pleasure of your slow decay.
Feel the
pain of
vengeance
burn you,
Soon you
shall know
silence.(x2)
With trembling hands you'll beg for mercy.
I'll show you none.(x2)
Purified by my hand
In this my world(x2)
It is salvation.
Your futile existence draws to a close
A cloak of lies drops.
The lies drop.
04 11th Hour (03:44)
The hour of reckoning draws near
Judgment day is here and gone
Sweetly she draws me into her arms
A liquid embrace to chase the day way.
Sedate Numb Deaf and Dumb
Stumbling into solitude.
A clouded judgment day is fueled.
Take me under your black wings
Mark my words and remember me.
So sweetly she sucks away at my time
So sweetly she draws me nigh
Closer and closer towards never ending sleep
Spin the bottle
Kiss only the bottle.
The dark mistress of many, beholden to none
Slips a ring of needles around your arm in an engagement
Eternal engagement
Never consummated.
Take me under your black wings
Mark my words and remember me.
Destroyer of senses.
So take as needed for the pain
Another gray morning dawns across an ashen sky.
My sweet demoness beckons me
Ever again and again and again and again.
The dark mistress of many, beholden to none
My sweet demoness beckons me
Ever again and again and again and again and again.
Take me under your black wings.
Jacked up on the taste of self-destruction.
05 For Your Malice (03:43)
Welcome home to my reality.
So you taste yourself every time?
bitter must be your pleaure
This your swan song I'll sing for you.
I'll cut the words from your mouth
You'll never speak my name again.
Locked up and sold the fuck out
Don't think you won't see me again.
It'll come back three times
Once in the name of deceit
Twice for your malice
Three times when I take you away.
This is a homicide daydream
I won't waste my hate on you.
All that you've claimed not to be
Has now come to define you.
It'll come back three times
Once in the name of regret
Twice for your envy
Three times when I take you away.
Turn on my heels
and
spit
apathy on
this
bridge you have burnt.
Feast on my own blood
I'll drain myself to sleep.
I'll rise from death to knife this beast
These last regrets the one I keep.
It'll come back three times
Once in the name of deceit
Twice for your malice
Three times when I take you away.
Three times when I take you away.
Three times when I take you away.
06 Boot Scraper (04:34)
Watch The Broken Common Man
Drown His Sorrows at Unhappy Hour.
Dirty and Sweaty
With Just Enough to Get By.
Calluses on his hands, calluses on his soul
Hard-Boiled son of a bitch
Scraping away on the downhill Grind
It's a means to an end, a mean end for most.
Death and domestication ends in shattered hopes
Can't see the hand at the other end of the leash.
Turn and Bite.
Turn and bite the hand that bleeds you dry.
Throw Yourself a bone, or no one else will.
Compromise Leads to self-loathing
Money the excrement of labor
And you don't get to keep shit.
Except politics and power trips and a bad breath down you neck.
I know
For I have toiled in the halls of the mighty
And not recieved a teardrop in a bucket.
Muthafuck it.
The world doesn't owe me a thing
But you do muthafucker.
So crooked when you die they're gonna have to screw your ass into the ground
As life slowly unravels
With nothing to show but your wasted time and dust
A thousand points of lies falling on the deafened funeral eardrums of the blind masses.
Rise above, extract your life.
Will you look within
Then turn around and bite?
Day by day the mask suffocates your life
Is this any way to live?
No.
No.
No fucking way.
08 In Defense of Our Good Name (04:10)
Returning to solace
So sweet like honeysuckle on the tongue
The sound of silence blesses my ears
Enveloping like the earth I will one day lie in
Metropolis is bad to wither the soul
Roaring concrete and steel washes you in blood.
So let you point and laugh
Provincial ain't so bad.
Take me back down to where I belong
To rust in rivers.
I do not covet any man's life
I know my place all to well
One man's paradise is another man's living hell.
To each their own
Generations ago made this place my own
The roots are deep and strong
Carry them wherever I go.
Never wanted your approval
Never wanted your acceptance
Never wanted to be anything but me
Never wanted to be anywhere but here.
Carry me Southeast bound home
To speak in defense of our good name
Lay me to rest with my kin
In the ground of God's country.
Lash out at any who would smear you with hate
Deify no one, Never crawl ashamed
The past screams injustice on Southern night wind
Whips Manacles Chains Musket balls
A dark history never forgotten
Only misconception remains.
Speak in defense of our good name
The blood of kin grants absolution
I'll join them soon enough in the ground of God's country.
Never wanted your acceptance
Never wanted your approval
Never wanted to be anything but me
Never wanted to be anywhere but here.
10 Vigil (04:43)
Our father thy will be done.
I have denied this life its worth
I will not be the victim.
Sickness to you my master
Here's to getting worse
Hope it kills you faster.
Show me how it hurts to rot from the inside out.
This vigil burns
Until the day our fires overtake you.
Our father we forsake you.
Blesses be his name
Nothing now the same.
Ask me why I hate
Why I've prayed to see the nation that I loved disintegrate
And gladly give my life
That revolution regenerates.
In honor of the strife of those who've died
In generations before your blood stained glory
I reject you
I deny you
I defy you to continue.
I defy you to continue.
In honor of the strife of those who've died
In generations before your blood stained glory
I reject you
I deny you
I defy you to continue.
Smite the shepherd and the sheep will be scattered.
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