Lamb of God recently released their latest album, a self-titled LP that earned high marks in our review and landed on our list of the Top 20 Metal Albums of 2020 (So Far).
Before the current pandemic, we sat down with singer Randy Blythe to chat about the album. In Part 1 of our video interview, the frontman discussed the sociopolitical direction of the LP, his thoughts on the U.S. elections, the single “Checkmate”, and more.
In Part 2 (watch above), Blythe talks about the songs “New Colossal Hate” and “Reality Bath”, which tackle the subjects of immigration and school shootings, respectively.
“New Colossal Hate” is a reinterpretation of the iconic Emma Lazarus poem “The New Colossus”, which is inscribed at the Statue of Liberty, and contains the famous line, “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free.”
In the Lamb of God song, Blythe twists the words to condemn the current treatment of immigrants in America, singing, “Lash the tired and kill the poor/ The huddled masses ram the door.”
As Blythe explains to us, “What I see that is disturbing to me — and I use the Stature of Liberty as a metaphor … is this sort of shift toward xenophobic attitudes, where people are afraid of people from other places because of their skin color, their religion, their beliefs.”
Blythe goes on to discuss “Reality Bath”, which deals with school shootings and other topics. “I think there’s a deep-seated issue that needs to be addressed,” Blythe tells us. “Even if the guns weren’t available … something has gone wrong … where it has become even a thought in a 12-year-old’s head that, ‘I’m just going to go to school and kill everyone.'”
The singer delves much further into each song, so watch the video above to get his full thoughts on the aforementioned topics. Lamb of God’s new self-titled album is now available here.
Trouble viewing the player above? Watch on YouTube.
