Ashes of the Wake is the fourth studio album by American heavy metal band Lamb of God, released in 2004. The album debuted at number 27 on the Billboard 200, selling 35,000 copies in its first-week and was rated by Guitar World as the 49th greatest Guitar Album of all Time. The album is more political than their previous work, aimed at the war in Iraq, with songs such as "Ashes of the Wake" (which includes snippets of former staff sergeant and former Marine Jimmy Massey in an interview after his return from the Iraq War), "Now You've Got Something Read more on Last.fm.
It was like a second coming for metal. To purists with their focus on the progressive aspects of the genre, it wasn’t anything to write home about. For fans of Pantera and late 80’s Metallica, it was a breath of brimstone air, crunching groove riffs over masterful drumming. The blood and gravel of Randy Blythe’s tortured vocals added modern heft to the throwback sound. It was the injection of piss and vinegar that metal needed. Mark Morton and Willie Adler were pages ripped out of the Hetfield/Hammet notebook. Their mixture of Pantera esq dirge and thrash oriented gallop made Ashes a primal, angry experience. They haven’t matched it since.