Lamb of God focuses on hard play

Playing hard music and keeping a band's integrity is the only thing Lamb of God wants to do, said bassist John Campbell

"We've never really thought of anything else," Campbell said during a telephone interview from Richmond, Va. "And since we've been signed to a major label (Epic), we feel the need to hold stronger to that idea."

The band —Campbell, vocalist Randy Blythe, guitarists Will Adler and Mark Morton and drummer Chris Adler (Will's brother) — formed in Richmond in the mid-1990s. The goal of the band was the same back then as it is now. "We want to keep it together and play what we like on our own terms," said Campbell. "Each album we approach is different from the last. We were really careful with the new one because it was on a major label.

"And to tell you the truth, we didn't have any songs written as of January this year. By the time we hit the studio in May, however, we had the songs written and a good idea of what the album was going to sound like."

The recording process for the new album, "Ashes of the Wake," which will be released on Aug. 31, relied on the intuitions of the band, said Campbell. "We really had to trust ourselves. The hard part was to not out-think what we wanted to do. It was easy to overanalyze the production. But we realized that we had done three albums before (one recorded under the band's original moniker Burn the Priest), so we knew we could do it. It was just making sure we were doing ourselves right with the music."

Musical integrity also is a concern for Unearth, which will open for Lamb of God for Sunday's show. "I look at what Metallica and Megadeth have done, and we didn't want to do that," said vocalist Trevor Phipps about the two metal pioneer bands trying to gear songs toward radio airplay. "We aren't going to do that."

One of the reasons is that Unearth recently signed to Metal Blade records, the label that first introduced Slayer and early Metallica to the masses, with the "Metal Massacre" compilation series.

"There some big bands on this label, and we have a reputation to keep," said Phipps.

Unearth — which includes Phipps, guitarists Buz McGrath and Ken Susi, bassist John Maggard and drummer Michael Rudberg — has released "The Oncoming Storm," the band's first full-length album in three years. "It was a nice perk for us to get into the studio to record this album. And I think it's our best record we've ever made."