Here, in all of its suck-ass verbosity, is my review of the latest Metallica album. I am not likely to ever do something like this again unless Genesis reforms with the original five members and puts out an album that tried to channel 1975, and perhaps not even then. Hopefully those who do read all of this do not come away feeling like I have just wasted their time. So um, read at your own risk.

As everyone knows I have spent some time listening to this album, more time than any of the albums after the Black Album, and while the reason I listened to that album as much as I did was pure fucking disbelief, the reason for this one was curiosity. I'll be coming back to the Black Album a little bit further down as well. In fact this promises to be a long review that might push the character limit. For the purpose of this review I took a lot of time between the first times I listened to the album and today. In fact it ended up being over a month. This should give me the proper perspective needed to properly sum up my thoughts.

Metallica literally got me through high school. When Master Of Puppets reached a million copies sold worldwide, I was getting ready to graduate. Seeing this band make it completely on their own terms a month or so before I got my diploma was a huge inspiration, not just because I wanted to be a in a big thrash band (Tormentor was our name) but because it was a metaphor for life. You don't have to sell out to be successful; being who you already are can get the job done. In the mid-80's Reagan era, this positive reinforcement was huge. I count Master of Puppets among the top metal albums ever recorded, but it was as important an album to me personally. So much so that when I won a $10 bet with someone at work in 1988, I actually wrote "Metallica" on the $10 bill and used it to buy ...And Justice For All. Without even having heard "Enter Sandman" (a song some of my friends had warned me about) I bought the new Metallica album in 1991 off of a friend who had stolen a promo copy from the record store he worked at just so I could have it several hours before the midnight release. It seemed like the right thing to do. Metallica's new album was going to set everything right.

As I have said many times, it was not so much how bad the Black Album was, or how blatantly the band was fishing for pop singles, but the tour, that pushed me completely off of the bandwagon (along with thousands of my closest friends). The showing of the Rockumentary instead of an opening act (presumably for the new fans they just picked up) and the utter comtempt with which they held the material from Justice ("if we played all those songs for you, we'd be here until tomorrow, so here is a medley of the songs instead"), not to mention at least 45 minutes of complete bullshit noodling in the middle of everything, was enough to convince me that the band wanted to say goodbye to their old fans and say hello to a more financially well-to-do audience, those for whom music was not a priority but was instead something to play very loudly on their expensive stereo systems they bought with spare change. That's a very bitter pill to swallow.

Obviously the band would continue to get worse and worse until one day they decided to retune back to E and I guess see if they've still "got it," whatever "it" is anymore. Earlier this year I found myself actually hoping this would be a good album for some reason. I don't owe them anything. I don't owe them a "chance" or even the smallest portion of time listening to anything this band records. I don't think any of us do, really. They squandered every last bit of good will in 1991. It's not about redemption or anything like that either. As I said earlier, it was all about curiosity. The short version of the review: this album is indeed better than the Black Album and everything else that followed, but I am not sure how much that even matters or if that is even saying anything. The long version is below. I hope you enjoy reading my review even if you do not agree with it.

The premise of all this stems from the fact that Metallica tuned back to E and decided to play some of that old school power metal again. The first question, of course, is "why?" There may be more 80's values returning to heavy metal in the form of actual leads and songwriting, but it's not like the stuff is burning up the charts. But they aren't reinventing themselves, or heavy metal music, nor are they really adding any serious new wrinkles. As the album starts, the first thing I heard was "1988." This, of course, is the idea. St Anger was supposedly their therapy album, but the reality is they'll probably get a lot more mileage out of this one, and the few money-paying fans they still have shouldn't actually feel like they got ripped off this time. Because, as it turns out, they have not completely forgotten how to play heavy metal. And with Rick Rubin at the helm, it wasn't hard for them to sound better than they did on their last album. With that, I press play.

The album opens with what is probably their strongest song, "That Was Just Your Life," which borrows more than a little from the structure of "Blackened." It's a powerful, speed-metal piece (remember those?) that opens the album nicely and sets the tone. There is even an intro reminiscent of "Battery." The rest of the album seems to be in a range of about 1988-1991. "The End Of The Line" and "The Judas Kiss" could also conceivably have appeared around that time. Some of it, such as "Broken, Beat And Scarred" and "Cyanide" would have been more at home on the Black Album. The all instrumental "Suicide And Redemption" would have also been home in the late 80's, considering the equally boring "To Live Is To Die" was at that time. "All Nightmare Long," is the only time the band downtunes. Considering they had done this a couple of times in their prime, it's not out of place here, and is easily another highlight. This could have also worked in on either Justice or the Black Album.

"The Day That Never Comes" is that famous "4th song," and when I first heard it as a single I could barely get through it. Listening to it to set up this review, it does not bother me quite as much. In fact, I can honestly say the heavier second half of the song bothers me more than the mellow first half due to its very random and all-over-the-place feel. It is one of several moments on the album where the band seems like musical archaeologists trying to recreate old Metallica out of some old tapes. In this case, they appear to be trying to recreate the ancient artifact known as "One." This also happens at the end, with "My Apocalypse," which appears to be trying to channel some cross between "Damage, Inc" and "Dyer's Eve" unsuccessfully. It's fast and the riffing is there, but it is missing that X-factor as if the band had no real idea what it was like to be angry or anxious, two qualities that made the older songs so potent.

Not sure exactly what "The Unforgiven III" is doing on here. It's a song that would not have made sense back in 1989, or 1991, whenever they envision that they would have released this album. It just has no place here. Now that I have said that, it will probably be a huge single.

Production note: the sound seems fuzzy no matter what device I use to listen to it or how ever many different versions of it I download. As I mentioned earlier, comparing it favorably to St. Anger is not the issue, but it looks like they've fallen victim to the compression recording style (or perhaps all MP3's from the album just suck, a way for the band to get the last laugh on their fans after all). It makes me wish that Rubin was not associated with the recording, although as I understand it he had a lot to do with the way the band wrote and rehearsed this album, and if so he does have something to do with the quality of the songs themselves. But the sound quality makes it very difficult to listen to more than a few songs at a time and takes Rubin down a notch.

It's time to put it all together. I guess the big question now is, what has Metallica accomplished? Sure it's better than everything else after ...And Justice For All (which is anything but difficult to accomplish). Hetfield's picking is strong throughout, Lars and Kirk do what they have always done, which is to be just good enough. And as we can actually hear the bass from time to time and Rob seems competent enough. But one big issue with this album is its length. They really seem to have rambling down, something that we saw to an extent on Justice but nothing close to what we have here. Almost ever song could have been improved by lopping a minute or two off of the second half of the song. Pointless riffing is even more ridiculous in 2008 than it was in 1988 during "To Live Is To Die." It is pretty tiring to listen to this album straight through.

So to ask again, what have they accomplished? Well it really depends on where you put your expectations with regards to the project. If you are just going to say that it sucks simply because they will never be as good as they were during Master of Puppets, congratulations. You neither need to listen to it nor read this review.

If you are looking for something to indicate that after 20 years of low-quality music released under the name Metallica, the band is finally poised to pick up where they left off after the abrupt close to "Dyers Eve," then you probably should cut off the mullet once and for all. Two decades of raising children, making money, fighting addiction and having that much life experience later, it's just not going to happen. Metallica as a powerful force in the world of metal exists in name only. This album will not put them on the top of anything that simply showing up on stage doesn't already do.

However, the question of "can this band put out a quality Metallica album after 20 years of refusing to do so?" does get a tentative "yes." I had given some time in between listening sessions to this album, and I have to say I feel pretty much the same way about it now as I did a month ago, with the only real exception being that much more keen on the sound quality and the meandering that takes place roughly two-thirds of the way through about half of the songs. But this does sound sincere enough and taken strictly as a metal album with no other qualifiers, I think it is pretty good.

To me, this sounds like the band was trying to place themselves at the time period right before the Black Album, as if perhaps they had either never met Bob Rock or if they had maintained more creative control over the direction of the band's music. Listening to Justice again, I can actually hear some of the elements of the Black Album taking place. That album didn't entirely come out of nowhere. I think more accessible music was on the horizon anyway. I think mid-tempo material would have happened and that more succint material would have been mixed in with the longer/faster material. In other words, I was not just expecting Justice 2 when I got the Black Album instead. Growth and change happens. That doesn't mean they nailed the proper follow up to Justice; they can't at this age. No one in their 40's can (in fact, I have to be honest and say many of these songs are improved by the perspective they now have). And my reasoning does not explain the existence of "The Unforgiven III," which can only be a product of the last 20 years. But I don't necessarily think everything on the Black Album can be attributed to Bob Rock and the pressure put on the band for narrowly missing a Grammy. Some of that album would have happened anyway. I think this album, had it followed Justice, would have gotten much of the flak that the Black Album did (even if you take TU3 off of the album) but would have been remembered much more fondly now. If they want to create a wormhole and go back to 1990, put this album instead of the Black Album, and then break up, I could live with that.

Where do they go from here? Well thankfully we don't have to answer this just yet. This one is still new and they get to tour and stuff. But this would be a hell of a time to retire from recording completely and just tour until they no longer feel like doing that anymore. In my opinion, their legacy is in a significantly better spot than they were any other time in the last 20 years, asssuming they don't fuck it up again.

Verdict: Success.

great reviews seerix

just a note on the production quality. i saw some reports that the cd release did suffer from the now industry standard compression for 'maximum loudness' or however it's justified, but the video game version of the album has none of the compression. so if you want high quality death magnetic it's all about downloading the album for guitar hero 3.

Thanks for the tip...and also for your kind words regarding the review

Downloading the GH3 version now...

Nice review. I actually read the whole thing. I guess the little headbanger Roivas inside still thrives.

The worst peak-limited CD in my collection has to be Blood Mountain. It's just frustrating to listen to.

If you don't post that Magnum Opus of a review on Amazon at the very least or send it in to some publication or another....I am sending The Squirrels!!!!



Seriously, that's one of the best (if not the best) reviews Satchmo has read in ages!


Having said that....If you don't get around to breaking off Bringing Back The E: How One Music Fan Reconciled His Life And Found Peace....I am sending THE SHADOWS!

Thank you! I am glad you guys enjoyed my review

I did download the Guitar Hero version and it is a lot better sounding. I kind of wish that I had it all along. It would have made today's recap that much easier.

I am planning on logging the process for next year's recapitulation. I'll see how that goes.

@Roivas: I agree about Blood Mountain. I do like that band so it really is a shame. But the combination of the production and the A-tunings is a lot to take. I just get headaches after listening to a few tracks.

Yeah, that was a great read man, from someone who was also into thrash metal in the mid/late 80's it pretty much sums up how I feel about Metallica and this new release.

An interesting read. I think the review was worth the waiting.

Obviously I have somewhat of a different view of the pre-Black Album era, especially when it comes to the ideologic parts in the review-introduction, but I realize this band is (or at least used to be) very personal to Seerix, and of course he's entitled to his own opinions. Suffice to say, I cannot agree to most of the Black Album/Bob Rock references either.

What Seerix has accomplished is that I now have decided to check that album out, even though my expectations aren't very high.

But I have a few questions for further discussion:

- Is there any connection from the album title to any of the songs? If not, how was it inspired?

- You implied Metallica lost some of their creative control over their music at some point. Exactly what are you refering to? I'm hearing that for the first time.

- Can't agree on that no one in their 40s can regain or even surpass the (quality-) level he/she once had. From my perspective that has been proven wrong several times, and I'm limiting myself to music now. Ozzy, Kiss, Aerosmith, Scorpions or David Coverdale come to mind. I know few if any will agree on here, but there's also a world outside RM.

Great stuff, Seerix. Highly enjoyed it. It convinced me to check the album out again, listening to "That Was Just Your Life" right now. I doubt my thoughts on the album will change much, but the review was great. I agree with Satch, you should try your hand at publishing reviews.