Band:	Lamb Of God
Album:	Resolution
Style:	Groove thrash metal
Release date:	January 2012

Disc I
01. Straight For The Sun
02. Desolation
03. Ghost Walking
04. Guilty
05. The Undertow
06. The Number Six
07. Barbarosa
08. Invictus
09. Cheated
10. Insurrection
11. Terminally Unique
12. To The End
13. Visitation
14. King Me

Disc II [Wrath - Tour 2009-2010] [Limited pre-order bonus]
01. The Passing
02. In Your Words
03. Set To Fail
04. Walk With Me In Hell
05. Hourglass
06. Now You've Got Something To Die For
07. Ruin
08. As The Palaces Burn
09. Blacken The Cursed Sun
10. Laid To Rest
11. Redneck
12. Black Label
13. Digital Sands [iTunes bonus]
14. Vigil [live] [iTunes bonus]
15. Bury Me Under The Sun [Japanese edition bonus]

After the somewhat experimental, uneven Sacrament and phoned-in blandness of Wrath, Lamb Of God return with a vengeance on Resolution. Listening to this is like erasing the past 8 years and picking up right where the excellent Ashes Of The Wake left off.

From the first dirty, southern guitar chords to Randy's shriek, I am back in high school again. The production is crystal clear, but not washed out. "Walk With Me In Hell," though a great song, sounded like it was recorded in a tin can, and Wrath in general was so compressed it felt like a SNES soundtrack. This is a return to the riff machine that made these guys top dogs to begin with. The guitar-work is fast, tight, and just plain fun. If you were one of the people who went racing for tabs after hearing "Laid To Rest" the first time, this is the album for you. There are too many moments to name, but the intro transition on "Ghost Walking," and the relentless "Terminally Unique" stick out in my mind at the moment.

Back on Randy: he hasn't sounded this monstrous in a long time. He had virtually discarded the remnants of his death metal roots on Sacrament, but here they return to a point. He still has that Anselmo-esque inflection he added, but the high pitched shrieks and crunching lows are back to add variety and hopefully scare away some of the core kids. The lyrics, if a bit contrived, get me going. I think the best example of the guitars, vocal delivery, and lyrics combining to just make you murderous is "Visitation." "My blood is boiling! I can't feel my own skin!" Yeah, it's go time.

As far as innovation goes, there are a few successful experiments here that still manage to fit nicely into the overall aesthetic. "Insurrection" has some clean singing on it that holds up okay. It's nothing special, but the track itself turns out to be quite good. "Barbarosa" is a cool, very sad, Southern-sounding instrumental. Most notably, "King Me" incorporates strings. I was skeptical about how this would fit, but it manages to make this a truly epic closer to the album. The best way I can describe it is to take the riff from "Walk With Me In Hell," slow it down, build the volume and intensity in the drums and vocals, turn it into another thrash-fest, then break just a moment before returning to the main hook, but this time on a full string arrangement. There are also some choir vocals to add to the ambience. Some may hate on this track, but I think it's spectacular.

I have only one minor gripe with this album. "Invictus" and "Cheated" don't hold up quite as well as the other tracks. I didn't find myself wanting to hit skip, but they felt more like outtakes to me. With this album being their longest (14 tracks at just under an hour), I feel cutting these two might have brought the length down to something a bit more open to regular repeat listening. That being said, I never found myself feeling bored over the course of play.

That pretty much does it. There are very few bands that rose up during my younger days that I would still recommend new albums for, but this one succeeds. With Randy having written at least part of the next album from prison, I am interested to see how it turns out.