Watch Lamb of God’s Evil, Murder-Filled ‘512’ Video
“I can’t recognize myself; I’ve become someone else / My hands are painted red,” Lamb of God singer Randy Blythe rages on the band’s explosive new track, “512.” And the metal mainstays have found a suitably macabre video to match those lyrics: Director Jorge Torres-Torres frames the clip as a vignette of murder and terrifying revenge.
The video opens with a group of friends drinking in a field, where they discover the dead body of a young woman – wrapped in plastic, Laura Palmer-style – in a creek. At a candle-lit vigil, one man displays a demonic smile, suggesting he was behind the murder. It’s that darkness that leads him to a gruesome fate.
“512” is full of dynamic drumming and doom-laden riffs, peaking with a volcanic guitar solo around the 2:55 mark. It’s the latest taste of Lamb of God’s seventh studio album, VII: Sturm Und Drang, which will be released on July 24th via Epic Records. Last month, the band shared the LP’s first single, the monstrous “Still Echoes.”
Sturm Und Drang was inspired by Blythe’s stint in Prague’s Pankrác Prison. Czech authorities arrested the singer in 2012 on manslaughter charges, after they claimed a Lamb of God fan died as a result of injuries from Blythe allegedly pushing him offstage during a 2010 show. He was found not guilty the following year.
Blythe spent much of his prison time locked in an unsettling basement dungeon, where he was monitored for depression. “They stick you in the worst, dimmest, darkest place in the prison,” Blythe recently told Rolling Stone. “I couldn’t even see the sun to tell what part of the day it was. It was just steadily lessening levels of gloom.”
“It was a tragic experience,” he said. “It’s a chapter of my life that’s in my head daily.”