I remember it like it was yesterday. It was a sultry late
spring evening at The Exchange, a now defunct DIY venue
and retail store in Wilmington, NC. The event was the annual
Wilmington Exchange Festival, or W.E. Fest, a semi-legendary
DIY music festival that attracted various bands, punk rockers,
indie kids, street urchins, and other misfits and hooligans
from all over the country to participate in a week long
musical orgy on the shores of the Cape Fear River. The year
was 1998 and I was a fresh faced kid right out of high school
and a nascent publisher of a small music zine, still very
music full of naiveté and an unbridled passion for
music that only youth can provide. The day had started early
and by the time the sun was fully down about a half dozen
bands had already played in the small space in the back
of The Exchange that passed for a venue, really not much
bigger than a child’s bedroom. The heat of the amplifiers
and the dozens of bodies crammed into such tight quarters
created sweltering conditions that drew all of the festival
goers out onto the sidewalk between sets to catch a bit
of fresh air.
It was here that I first witnessed a non-descript van roll
up to the curb and spill forth five scrappy-looking metalheads
that made up the then relatively unknown band with the dubious
appellation Burn the Priest from Richmond, VA. The dudes
were running late and in a sour mood as they had to immediately
set up for their set upon arriving to the venue. They were
the only metal band on the bill that night, and after taking
one look at the crowd of punk rockers and miscreants that
meandered outside The Exchange, the guys in Burn the Priest
were skeptical as to how they would be received. As a long-time
metalhead myself, I for one was particularly looking forward
to their set after being intrigued by their brazen choice
of moniker. The nearly unbearable conditions inside stalled
most of the crowd’s entrance into the venue until
they heard the first strains of music emanating from inside.
Once the band kicked into their set, the bedroom sized room
quickly filled to capacity and beyond.
As the first crackling guitar riffs filled the room with
their hellish cacophony, the place went absolutely bonkers.
It quickly devolved into a torrent of twisting, churning,
flailing bodies as the buzzsaw guitars and stampeding drums
ripped through the crowd like a fully armored cavalry charge,
topped off by the maniacal vocal contortions and antics
of their apparently crazed frontman. Only a couple of songs
into the set, the sweat from the bodies packed into the
room literally pooled on the floor already covered by a
day’s worth of spilt beer, blood, and vomit. Frontman
Randy Blythe was already stripped to his skivvies and there
was literally steam rising from his torso. He grabbed the
mic between songs, made some colorful comments about the
heat and proceeded to encourage everyone to get butt naked
as a way to combat the oppressive pall that hung in the
air like a stagnant desert breeze, setting the example by
immediately stripping off his remaining clothing.
Our columnist back in 1988
As the band kicked into their next song, one by one folks
in the crowd began to follow Randy’s lead and soon
nearly everyone in that crammed space was stark raving naked.
The entire room turned into one giant nude moshpit as the
energy of the band and the thrill of letting all inhibitions
go infected the crowd and spurred them to ever greater heights
of insanity, which only served to feed into the power and
intensity of the band. By the time it was all over, band
and audience alike were naught but a mass of bruised and
battered flesh left trembling on the venue floor.
| That was my first exposure to the band that became Lamb
of God, who over the course of the next few years quickly
climbed the ranks of the metal elite to become one of the
most celebrated and successful American metal bands of the
early 21st century. I have seen them at least a half dozen
times since that fateful evening at W.E. Fest. Each time
the band has delivered in spades, but none have come close
to capturing the magic and intensity of that naked and sweaty
Cape Fear evening. Legion: XX is Lamb of God’s
attempt to capture and encapsulate the kind of musical magic
that inspired them to pick up their instruments, hop into
a rusty old van, and unleash hell in the streets of Wilmington
that night so long ago. As this album of selected covers
seeks to represent this ethos, it is entirely appropriate
that the band has chosen to release it under their original
moniker; a name they abandoned after being signed upon the
advice that a name such as Burn the Priest would prevent
their star from rising to its full potential.
Coming of age in the late 80s and early 90s, the lads on
Lamb of God/Burn the Priest were heavily influenced by the
seething underground thrash/crossover scene that flourished
in those years and many of the tracks they selected to give
their unique spin on are of that ilk. But, they were also
could not help but be influenced by the grunge and alternative
scenes that took the world by storm in the opening years
of the 90s and sent real metal sulking back into the shadows
for nearly a decade.
The album opens with a scathing rendition of Seattle, WA’s
crossover titans The Accused’s “Inherit the
Earth,” which bursts forth like a stark raving lunatic
and crushes all in its path. The band then switches gears
completely without sacrificing the intensity with a searing
version of “Honey Bucket” by the Godfather’s
of Grunge themselves, the Melvins. This has always been
my personal favorite Melvins tune and this version does
the original more than justice, with Chris Adler’s
ferocious drum performance in particular adding even more
punch and drive than the original.
For the third track, Burn the Priest attempt to cover Big
Black’s opus to teen boredom and angst, “Kerosene.”
While the track is more than competently performed and delivered,
its repetitive nature seems to drain some of the momentum
the band had built up with the first two numbers and falls
a bit flat. The band quickly recovers with an outstanding
version of the S.O.D. classic “Kill Yourself”
that bulldozes through everything while seeming to teeter
on the brink of coming completely unhinged as each instrument
spurs and dares the others to keep pace or crash and burn.
Once again, Chris Adler’s precision drumming hold everything
together as the guitars spit and rage over top, leaving the
listener gasping for breath at the end of its brief run time
of just over two minutes. The band follows this with “I
Against I” from the legendary Bad Brains. Here vocalist
Randy Blythe stands out with his ability to not only faithfully
but convincingly deliver the challenging vocal gymnastics
of Bad Brain’s vocalist HR, which are definitely outside
of his wheelhouse. Yet, Randy more than rises to the occasion,
displaying his growth as a vocalist and not just the glorified
screamer he was in the very early years of the band.
The band’s next choice is an interesting one that personally
left me initially perplexed. I’ve always considered
myself deeply knowledgeable about music in general and all
things metal in particular, but the choice of Sliang Laos’
“Axis Rot” left me resorting to Google to fend
off my ignorance. Turns out these guys were an obscure Richmond
band that recorded one album in the mid-90s before disbanding
and sinking back into the mists of legend and obscurity. Evidently
they left quite an impression on the young Randy Blythe, leading
to the inclusion of “Axis Rot” here. With a sound
like a cross between Helmet and Don Caballero, the mathy and
quirky “Axis Rot” certainly has a different feel
than everything else on Legion: XX but Randy and the boys
manage to pull it off. Randy once again shines by stepping
outside of his wheelhouse with clean vocals that retain the
venom and vitriol that he is known for without resorting to
all out vocal violence.
Next the band tackles the metal tinged, industrial tinted
monolith that is Ministry with a rendition of “Jesus
Built My Hotrod” that removes the industrial tint without
sacrificing the mechanical drive and head snapping groove.
This track sees lead guitarist Mark Morton step out with a
couple of searing solos, including some tasty slide guitar
playing that is just as pleasing and fitting as it is unexpected.
The band then returns to the realm of late 80s crossover with
a pit-inducing version of the Agnostic Front’s “One
Voice,” before once again doing a complete one eighty
with a cover of “Dine Alone” by legendary post-hardcore
mavericks Quicksand. Although not the best track on the record,
the band does an honorable rendition that retains the aura
of the original and seethes and boils in all the right places.
They don’t try to do too much with it and Randy once
again shows his vocal diversity with a performance that is
melodic without being trite and vicious without being bombastic.
The album closes with a version of NYC hardcore/crossover
kings Cro-Mags’ “We Gotta Know” that delivers
both punk hubris and metal violence and finishes the album
in much the same place it began.
Over two decades in the music biz is enough to jade even the
most intense musical passions. At this point in their careers,
most metal bands of the caliber and longevity of Lamb of God/Burn
the Priest tend to veer off the path that got them to that
pinnacle and begin experimenting with sounds and styles that
often tend to alienate their core fanbase. Just about every
major metal band over the last three decades has succumbed
to this trend, including Metallica, Megadeth, Anthrax, and
even Slayer. Yet every time these experiments fail and the
bands come running back to their roots, with varying degrees
of success in recapturing the essence that attracted fans
to them in the first place. Legion: XX is Lamb of
God’s statement to the world that they will not fall
victim to such travesties of musical justice and a reminder
to themselves of just why they enjoyed doing this music thing
in the first place.
JerseyBeat.com
is an independently published music fanzine
covering punk, alternative, ska, techno and garage
music, focusing on New Jersey and the Tri-State
area. For the past 25 years, the Jersey Beat music
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Burn
the Priest - Legion: XX (Epic) 
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