Out today (Oct. 7) is Omens, the ninth studio album by five-time Grammy Award nominated Virginia heavy rockers Lamb of God. The 10-song set was produced by Josh Wilbur, who worked on Lamb of God's four previous albums, and was recorded at Henson Studios in Hollywood. It's the follow-up to 2020's Lamb of God, which the quintet was not able to tour in support of due to the pandemic. That situation, frontman D. Randall Blythe tells us, contributed significantly to Omens' timetable: “It got started because we put out a record, June of 2020. It was really well-received, and then we just did nothing, 'cause nobody was touring…It feels like the record disappeared, which is very strange for me because almost my entire adult life it's been write-record, write, record, record to go out on tour. That sort of routine was interrupted…and some of my guys were like, 'Oh, we should write a new record since we aren't touring. So that's how it started.”
Guitarist Mark Morton, who writes Lamb of God's songs with Blythe and fellow guitarist Willie Adler, tells us that much of Omens was recorded by the five musicians playing all together in the studio. That, he said, gave the album its own unique feel: “It's our ninth record, so it sounds like us but it's a very, very contemporary, um, a very modern sounding version of us. And I think really what's unique about this album is…the feel. I think it's got a very, very live pulse because of the way we recorded it, because of how collaborative it was, because of everyone's input. It's very energized.”
Blythe adds that he's not particularly fond of the recording studio process, but he found working at Henson — which was established by Charlie Chaplin and later became A&M Records' home — to be very inspiring. “I tried to sort of internalize that vibe, the history of the place. It was also really cool 'cause they had Charlie Chaplin's private screening room. So my girl was out there and as Henson owns the studio…Henson had the Muppets, of course. They had a bunch of killer Dark Crystal memorabilia, like full-sized Skeksis and puppets from it. So I got to watch The Dark Crystal with my girl, just me and her, in Charlie Chaplin's private screening room. It was very interesting. He showed Winston Churchill movies there. So it was a really cool feeling.”
In addition to videos for the singles “Nevermore” and “Grayscale,” Lamb of God has released a short documentary, The Making Of: Omens, that can be accessed via watch.lamb-of-god.com.
Lamb of God will celebrate Omens' release on Friday with a performance at the Aftershock Festival in Sacramento, Calif., and will be on the road in the U.S. through Oct. 20 before returning to Europe for a seven-week tour starting Nov. 18th in Denmark.
The full track list for Omens includes:
Nevermore
Vanishing
To the Grave
Ditch
Omens
Gomorrah
Ill Designs
Grayscale
Denial Mechanism
September Song