Metallica – Death Magnetic

So one of the biggest bands in the world release the long-awaited follow-up to 2003’s unfairly criticised ‘St. Anger’. The critics, fans and industry all seem to have embraced ‘Death Magnetic’ for differing reasons.

The industry need their ‘giants’ to shift units in a troubled market and the ‘critics’ have collectively agreed to help. The fans just want to believe that Metallica have returned their ‘glory’ days of the mid to late 80’s. That is why they all hated St. Anger, because it sounded different and dare I say, new. It did exactly what it said on the tin and it was damn good metal for the new millenium.

Metallica fans are like Maiden fans, they know what they like and they want it to remain the same for all eternity – this is however, quite understandable and we all feel that way about our heros as a rule.

Overview!

The problem is that Death Magnetic doesn’t sound as much like Master Of Puppets as everyone likes to think. It sounds like left overs from St. Anger, Reload and Load. It sounds like they really did go into the studio and record whatever they came up with. It is generally a mess, with some decent moments of Metallica thrown in for good measure. I am sorry, but Metallica are far too spoilt by the press (and their fans) – this album is non-essential unlike Machine Head’s ‘The Blackening’ for example. Megadeth’s ‘United Abominations’ deserved far more praise, especially as it successfully managed to recapture some heyday Megadeth magic, but still sounded fresh.

Of the track Broken, Beat and Scarred, Rolling Stone said that Hetfield sings “What don’t kill ya make ya more strong” with enough power to make the cliché feel fresh. No! John Bush sang that ‘cliché’ on Anthrax’s Fueled (from their lost masterpiece Stomp 442) with power and conviction, which was why Metallica tried to sign him up to replace Hetfield on vocals.

I don’t want to pick this album to pieces, it’s OK and I will probably play it again. I will always play Master, Justice, The Black Album, Load and St Anger, so yes, I am disappointed. The production is poor and it distorts like a old rubbish transistor radio. Compared to Slipknot’s ‘All Hope Is Gone’ it is weak. Ironically Slipknot replaced Rick Rubin with Dave Fortman for their latest effort. The rhythm guitars are as always, tight and clean. The soloing is predictable and lacks soul and of course… vibrato. I, unlike many of my peers, have always been able to ignore this fact – I just kinda switch my attention to Lars for thirty seconds or so.

Conclusion

I love Metallica and what they deliver. I have seen them more than any other band. I would rather that they released this album than nothing at all. Their name sounds like the greatest Transformer of them all, that was sent to earth to destroy all hip-hop and dare I say, hair-metal bands. But there is just too much superior metal about, which is a shame, because a band from Cybertron should rule the world!