There are few more reliable forces in heavy music than Lamb of God at full throttle, and on Wednesday, April 1, 2026, the Richmond groove-metal institution turned the PNE Forum into a churning pit of bodies. Touring behind their latest album, Into Oblivion, the band delivered exactly what two decades at the top of American metal have taught them to: a relentless, precisely brutal set that never once let the room catch its breath.
Getting there took one of the more punishing undercards in recent memory. Ohio’s Sanguisugabogg opened with a slab of gleefully grotesque death metal, New Jersey’s Fit For An Autopsy followed with their crushing, melodic deathcore, and Texas hardcore heavyweights Kublai Khan TX handled direct support, whipping an already-primed crowd into a frenzy. By the time the lights dropped for the headliner, the Forum floor was a warzone in the best possible sense.
Lamb of God hit the stage like a detonation, tearing into “Ruin” and the immortal “Laid to Rest” before anyone had time to brace. Frontman Randy Blythe remains one of the most commanding presences in the genre - a whirl of dreadlocks and menace, prowling the stage and conducting circle pits and walls of death with a preacher’s authority. “Blood Junkie” and “Resurrection Man” kept the assault coming, the twin-guitar attack of Mark Morton and Willie Adler as razor-sharp as ever.
The new material more than held its own. The title track “Into Oblivion,” along with “Grace,” “Desolation” and “Parasocial Christ,” slotted seamlessly beside the classics, proof this is a band still writing with fire in its belly rather than coasting on legacy. But the biggest roars, inevitably, came for the old guard: the breakneck “512,” the churning “Walk With Me in Hell” and the pit-summoning “11th Hour” turned the whole floor into one heaving mass.
Art Cruz was a machine behind the kit and John Campbell anchored the low end like a foundation, giving Blythe room to roam. “Omerta,” “Sepsis” and “Memento Mori” built toward the only possible finale - “Redneck,” whose call for one last, enormous circle pit sent the PNE Forum into gleeful chaos. It was Lamb of God doing what they have always done best: no theatrics, no mercy, just a masterclass in controlled devastation. Vancouver, obligingly, lost its mind.
