Metal is alive and well, my friends.
The numbers came in and Lamb of God's seventh studio release, VII: Sturm und Drang, came in #2 on the U.S. Billboard Top Current Albums Chart (#3 on the Billboard Top 200) with 47,000 copies sold. Lamb of God can lay claim to having the best first week of any metal act this year.
The only act that outsold him would be Marilyn Manson with 51k, but to me, Manson is more hard rock than heavy metal. So, if you want to play the semantic game, let's say that Lamb of God had the highest selling first week of an extreme metal band of the year.
But they probably won't be able to lay claim to that for long. The next few months have some major metal releases including Iron Maiden, Slayer and potentially Megadeth all that could possibly have higher first weeks. We'll keep you posted.
Elsewhere in the world, Lamb of God topped the Canadian charts with a #1 debut, they were #2 in Australia, #7 in the U.K., #3 in Finland and #13 in Japan and Netherlands.
[h/t to Ryan Downey for some help with the numbers]
