Via the EPIC-FU blog. Originally posted by Göran Wallin on MIX.

I just couldn’t take it anymore. Simultaneously and seemingly coincidently, I’ve recently been in touch with various old friends and it’s greatly added to my feeling the pull to post, at the least to show that I do write traditional entries once in a while.

Though the lapse is generally a false state of stall (I’ve overhauled this site’s design, and my nav and sidebars attest I consistently bookmark, tweet, and comment elsewhere), I’ve seriously slacked in the category of producing significant original content here. To those who do check in: my apologies. There’s a lot of good reasons you haven’t heard from me.

Excuses though, are for another post. In homage to my not-so-closeted-metal-head friend Todd’s brilliant series tributing fearsome metal riffs, it’s time to smash forward my lull with fire-breathing guitar work, compliments of Virginia-based thrash-masters Lamb of God.

This doozy of an excerpt (audio below) is cut from Vigil, the epic closer of LOG’s seminal record As the Palaces Burn.

“When this song starts up, I can picture myself as an evil king marching towards a balcony in my castle’s highest tower. As I come to the edge, my evil army goes nuts and starts beating their armor and smashing their swords against their shields.”

Todd’s spot-on description, above, of a classic Slayer track, runs parallel to how I’ve always imagined the scene as Vigil builds to its apex and falls off the shelf at 1,000 miles an hour:

My scrappy but passionate band of revolutionaries, having arduously trekked across an unforgiving landscape, reach our hilltop destination to face our enemy. Outnumbered, we psych ourselves into an adrenaline frenzy and run crazed through a hail of arrows to darken the field with the blood of our oppressors.

(Click to play)

To anyone I might have just scared the bejesus out of and/or don’t know me very well (e.g. those I work with who might be reading this): cathartic brutality is only one among many of my musical tastes (check my last.fm page or my player). Also, now that I think of it, my interpretation is probably pretty common considering the band’s historical instigation of the Braveheart-lifted Wall of Death.

Until next time!

“The first major album whose price is determined by what individual consumers want to pay for it. And it’s perfectly acceptable to pay nothing at all.”

It drops October 10. Download it here.

[via Ryanne’s Tweet. Story link here.]