My metal interest is somewhat submarine (perhaps you were thinking, sublime? I doubt that that is the case) --- in the sense that I don't just stop with what's on the surface. My interest in lesser known artists has been with me since 1984 or so, but it has not been entirely continuous. I returned to my roots may be about three years ago, what with all the Y2K hysteria and all --- ha

I don't desire to be the preeminent source of extreme or small label metal here. I certainly lack the expertise or the pretense, but I may comment from time to time on some of the better kept secrets in the genre that really deserve a wider audience. Six weeks ago, Lamb of God dropped their new CD, and it is a crusher.

What is the state of up and coming American metal? Well if Lamb of God and Shadows Fall are the prime examples, I think that things are in really good hands. In my opinion, these bands pull together the international sound with the American sound excellently, creatively bind elements, and rightly take their place in the vanguard of U.S. metal. They both incorporate the best aspects of deathy and thrashy riffs, Swedish melodicism, double bass, aggro harsh vocals, and just real tight drumming/rhythm --- and the lyrics especially with LOG are excellent, and *GASP* exceptionally intelligent

Expectations were really high for this disc (as much as they were for Shadows Fall 'Art of Balance') because they got a lot of acclaim for their release three years ago, New American Gospel (or NAG, lovingly). Then LOG brought on Devin Townsend of Strapping Young Lad to produce, and I think expectations just went through the ceiling then.

What we get from the disc is more of what LOG does best. The double bass and cymbal attack sounds even better this time. The vocals remain unabashedly harsh, seemingly staying away from the new trend of harsh-clean so prevalent in some new small label releases --- so basically brutal vocals is the soup of the day for this disc, and LOG shows a bit more range in terms of vocal dynamics

I think that what you do see from both this disc and Shadows Fall's AOB is that the young bloods have taken direction from their American thrash predecessors, and the riffs take the next steps in thrash progression --- crunchy and melodic. And, yes, I do realize to some metalcore or death purists, that that may not be the best choice in terms of their ideas of progression, but, in my opinion, this CD just crushed all genre classifications to bits --- its a real category killer of an effort