Lamb of God at Arizona Financial Theatre

With more than 25 years at the forefront of heavy music, Lamb Of God have become one of metal’s most enduring and influential forces. Rising from their underground beginnings as  to five Grammy nominations and over two million albums sold, the Richmond, VA band has maintained a fierce punk ethos while operating at metal’s highest level.

Their tenth album, , finds Lamb of God fully embracing their status as veterans with nothing to prove. Drawing from every era of their career, the record fuses their signature groove-driven aggression with expanded dynamics and new sonic textures. Guitarist  describes the album as creatively unrestrained—honoring the band’s roots while pushing forward without limits.

Songs like the explosive lead single “  ” and the brutal “Blunt Force Blues” pay tribute to the early ’90s Richmond underground that shaped the band, while lamenting the loss of regional identity in modern music culture. Elsewhere, the apocalyptic title track delivers a blistering vision of societal collapse, and “El Vacio” reveals a more atmospheric, melodic side.

Lyrically, vocalist  confronts themes of social decay, personal responsibility, and the erosion of the social contract. Produced by longtime collaborator Josh Wilbur and recorded across legendary studios,  stands as a powerful statement of creative freedom from a band still evolving, still dangerous, and still essential.

Struggle spurs strength. Trials and tribulations mold and fortify character. Embodying these truths, Kublai Khan turn hardships into hypnotic and heavy metalcore upheld by nimble metallic fury and pit-splitting spirit on their fourth full-length offering, Absolute [Rise Records].

“A lot of the record is about our struggle with what we do and the fact we’ve been doing this for over a decade, hit a lot of roadblocks, ate a lot of shit, and still kept going,” exclaims frontman Matt Honeycutt. “We’ve done far more than we ever expected, so it’s always about picking yourself up, dusting yourself off, and letting nothing get you down. You have the opportunity to take responsibility for what you do wrong and right. We’re spinning the negative into a positive.”

The Sherman, TX quartet—Matt [vocals], Nolan Ashley [guitar, vocals], Eric English [bass], and Isaac Lamb [drums]—quietly emerged as a fiery force since their 2008 formation straight out of high school. They built a devout following through airtight consistency on Balancing Survival and Happiness [2014], New Strength [2015], and Nomad [2017]. The latter impressively tallied over 6 million cumulative streams with “The Hammer” surpassing 2.6 million on Spotify and “Antpile” exceeding 1.1 million. Meanwhile, acclaim came from Metal Hammer, Alternative Press, New Noise, and more as the boys toured relentlessly.

In early 2019, they retreated to New Jersey and hit the studio with longtime collaborator, engineer, and producer Randy LaBoeuf to record what would become Absolute. Taking advantage of a full month to create, they changed up the process, recording the drums last for the first time. Additionally, Randy provided space for Matt to hone his voice.

These techniques enriched the sonic punch.

“Everything could be folded around the drums, and it made for a better vision, to be honest,” continues Matt. “That’s how Randy records bands now. It allowed us to have more space to think. We were able to shape everything into exactly what we wanted. It was a game changer. The best thing about this record was the learning curve we experienced.”

The first single “Self-Destruct” showcases their evolution. Underpinned by airtight riffing, the track steamrolls through eerie samples and guttural growls before subsiding on a bashing reprieve of lone bass and drums.

“The polarization between everyday citizens in our country is unlike anything I’ve ever experienced,” he sighs. “In person, we can have discussions and logical conversations as friends. On social media, it’s incredibly toxic. They’re going for each other’s necks 24/7. If we keep going, we’re going to self-destruct. Everyone is a ticking time bomb. You can’t do or say anything without somebody taking offence. We need to calm down, back off, listen to each other, come together, and understand it’s okay for us to be different. That makes our country beautiful. Canceling conversation is dangerous.”

Elsewhere, “Boomslang” tosses and turns between a distorted chug, searing scream, and pensive lyrics about “touring in general, how difficult it can be on your nerves, and the internal warfare of what we do.” Then, there’s “The Truest Love.” It urges for preservation of the family unit as Matt barks, “You call yourself a man, but you just leave…just protect your young!”

“It concerns my qualms with the current state of male responsibility,” he states. “You see so many guys run out on their kids. They don’t stop to realize they helped create another life. You can’t say you’re a man and just abandon your family. It’s my irritation with how normal it’s becoming for the breakdown of the family unit to occur. Everything comes down to responsibility, self-love, and love of your family.”

In the end, Kublai Khan’s music siphons power from pain on Absolute.

“We put a lot into the record,” Matt leaves off. “There are so many different tones and lyrical aspects. It really shows how far we’ve come. I hope people connect and get something good from it. We’ll keep going no matter what.”

The crushing music of Fit For An Autopsy is for any fan of extreme metal, its sound and fury is absolutely unflinching in purpose. The band expertly blends excessive, force-fueled death metal with atmospheric groove and impassioned personal diatribes.

The Nothing That Is, Fit For An Autopsy’s seventh and latest album (third for Nuclear Blast), bears no sign whatsoever of commercial concession or rehashed past glories. Instead, the ten-song album finds the band exploring moodier textures and deeper emotions that add new power and dynamics to their already brutal and complex music, while also completely tuning out the ambient noise of passing musical trends and the expectations of the outside world.

Produced by Will Putney at his Graphic Nature Audio studio in Kinnelon, New Jersey, The Nothing That Is is an album filled with anger, frustration and crushing despair. It flows like the gripping soundtrack to a documentary film of our increasingly dystopian existence.

A ringing wake-up call for humanity and a thoroughly intense listening experience, The Nothing That Is brims with both aggression and melody, its bracing music delivered with the confidence of a band that has honed its skills and forged its sense of purpose through fifteen-plus years of all-out live shows. Sufficiently secure of their place in the metal firmament to let their music go wherever feels right for a particular song, Fit For An Autopsy have delivered what may well be the greatest album of their career.

Absurdist Ohio extreme metal band Sanguisugabogg ply an absolutely filthy, savagely downtuned brand of death metal with disgusting, gory but resolutely tongue-in-cheek lyrics.

Formed in 2019 in Columbus, Ohio, the band initially comprised vocalist (and sometime-standup comedian) Devin Swank, guitarist Cameron Boggs, bassist Steph Barnes, and drummer Cody Davidson. Later, Boggs and Barnes were replaced by Cedrik Davis and Drew Arnold, respectively. Their unusual name comes from a combination of sanguisuga, the Latin word for leech, and the British slang word bog, meaning toilet — with the aim of evoking a bloodsucking toilet. Songs with titles like “Turkish Blood Orgy,” “Gored in the Chest,” “Urinary Ichor,” “Black Market Vasectomy,” and “Testicular Rot” give a good idea of where they are coming from.

The whole band had been fans of old-school death metal from an early age; Swank‘s first show, at age 12, was Cannibal Corpse. Inveterate jokers arguably as famous for their prodigious consumption of psychedelics as for their music — they claimed to have recorded the entirety of both their albums while tripping on acid — they dubbed themselves “drug death metal.” While the band’s tone was goofy and jokey, they took their music very seriously, utilizing crushing drop-G tuning and eschewing solos for a relentless groove and piledriving riffs.

Picked up by metal giant Century Media on the strength of their first demo EP, 2019’s Pornographic Seizures, they recorded their first full-length album for the label, Tortured Whole, and released it in 2021. Following complaints over the EP’s lyrics about violence against women, the band switched it around and made all the album’s lyrics about violence against men. Their second album, Homicidal Ecstasy, followed in 2023.