Review Summary: Your enjoyment of this record will be inversely proportional to your expectations of LoG doing something new and different.
LoG are in the awkward "fame" position where they are not held to greatness enough to get away with rehashing old formulas (like Slayer), but at the same time they don't have the reputation for odd innovations and unexpected twists to justify any 180s (like Mastodon). When you get to the top by creating a unique and brandable sound, you become hostage of the situation you've created and LoG are illustrating that perfectly for the third album in a row since they unleashed the close to perfection Ashes of the Wake.
Of course it's not like LoG aren't trying to introduce something alternative here and there. You have the sludgeriffic opening track, various acoustic guitar interludes, a couple of prominent bass lines from John Campbell and a completely out-of-the-blue closing track which I can only describe as symphonic metalcore. But it's the 11 tracks in between these left-fielders (I excluded the instrumental track Barbarosa) that are the backbone of this release and cause so much debate about LoG role on the metal scene.
And the other thing is the duration. You make your record close to an hour long only in two cases: either you feel that you have something very important and different to say and you simply must leave all of it in, or you are doing fan service and simply churn out 'more riffs for the same price'. Since there are no new themes or sounds for the majority of Resolution, I believe it is the latter and with that you get the idea, where LoG's priorities are.
At the end of the day you get same old: Chris Adler is magnificent behind drums, Mark Morton and Willie Adler are a dizzying guitar duet and Randy Blythe will rip out your eardrums. The only problem is - there are only so many times you can get your eardrums ripped before you lose sensitivity to it.
