It's been five long years since Virginia metal titans Lamb of God pummeled our ears with new music, so the pressure was on for "Checkmate," the band's long-awaited offering to end that drought. Fortunately, the crushing single — which dropped today, February 6th, at the stroke of midnight — does not disappoint, building from a seething, bluesy intro into just the sort of mosh-pit rager that fans have come to love and expect. Lyrically, frontman Randy Blythe delivers a knockout blow to the United States' political "systematic disarray." "A liar's sick charade," he calls it, and "the American scream." Read the biting lyrics below.
"Checkmate" lyrics:
Watch the gears grind off their teeth
The screeching halt machine digging heels in disbelief
Two reactional identities, opposing policies
A bait and switch routine.
Double takes and double speak
Still scripting the facade
Asphyxiate and choke the truth
All hail the money God
Repeat, echo, refrain
It's all the same, so deafening
Repeat, echo, refrain
A consequence, we asked for this
Repeat, echo, refrain
No, never again
The American scream.
A coup de tat on full display, a liar's sick charade
A traitor's grand parade
Narcissistic masquerades for those without a say
Systematic disarray.
Divide and conquer and close them in
and bury secrets deep
Make America hate again
and bleed the sheep to sleep.
Repeat, echo, refrain
It's all the same, so deafening
Repeat, echo, refrain
A consequence, we asked for this
Repeat, echo, refrain
No, never again
The American scream.
You try to pick the lesser of
But evil doesn't come in twos
Bellicose and balkanized
A sinking ship of fools
So kiss the hangman as you drop
The rotting corpse of decency
Just another casualty of the American scream.
