Death Magnetic 2

Metallica, I bought your new album yesterday and I must say, it.. is... freaking... AWESOME! This is a huge step up from St. Anger (it makes me squeamish just saying that... St Anger, eughh). There are finally guitar solos! The change of producers has definitely made a big change, so long Bob Rock! They'll hopefully keep Rick Rubin for a long time to come.

The great thing about this is that Metallica has definitely gone back to their roots but I can't say that its quite up there with Master and the Black Album although it's pretty damn close. There's a hint of every Metallica in every song, ...And Justice for all Metallica for instance, can be found on their single "The Day That Never Comes", it follows the same structure of "One", starts quiet and beyond the middle, it's thrash all the way. I get a bit of a Black Album vibe with "Cyanide" it follows more on heavy metal than thrash. Metallica have followed the previous tradition of putting an instrumental song in this album, like "Orion" for Master and "The Call of Ktulu" for Ride the Lightning, by putting in "Suicide and Redemption" 10 minutes of pure 'Tallica. Speaking of Metallica tradition, they have made "The Unforgiven III", it has that distinct Unforgiven sound, slow but heavy. The Lyrical theme of "The Judas Kiss" does sound a lot like Master of Puppets, the line "Bow down, sell your soul to me, I will set you free" does sound like "Come crawling faster, obey your master" and "Master of Puppets I'm pulling your strings".

The album is fairly long despite only having ten songs, their shortest song clocks in at 5:01. The album is definitely a good buy for any Metallica fan, the album starts with That Was Just Your Life and never goes downhill, definitely a breath of fresh air from all the music on the mainstream today.

Death Magnetic

Metallica, you used to be one of the biggest thrash metal bands in the world, your blazing fast riffs made us rock out and headbang until we developed a severe case of whiplash. Yes, those were the days (I'm only 16 and I've only gotten into Metallica about 2 years ago, but who cares).

Kill Em All, Ride the Lightning, Master of Puppets, ...And Justice for All were your absolute classics, the sound we have come to associate with Metallica to this day. Then came the Black Album, and Bob Rock. I really liked the Black Album and it marked a change in style from your usually adrenaline driven, rapid paced songs, but it was all right I mean, it is your best selling album and that's where Enter Sandman came from. Then came Load, it was really... Should I say "meh". Overall, a sub par effort. I really dislike Load, only coming before St. Anger, we'll talk about that later.

And then, OH NOES!, Reload???, RELOAD? Who the hell names their albums twice? After this album, fans who recognized them from the 80's and NOT the Black Album had been thinking that by this time, Metallica were past their prime and completely abandoned their roots, accusing them of selling out. The Unforgiven II and Fuel are the only songs I really like from this record.

And then again, Napster. If you don't know, Napster was like Limewire. Now I think you get it. Metallica sued them in 2000 after they found out one of their songs have been circulating before it was released. In that very minute that they announced their lawsuit, from thrash metal kings, they quickly became a laughingstock of the musical community. A band that was wealthy beyond belief sued a company because people were getting their music for free and therefore, Metallica wouldn't get any royalties. Now, fans believe Metallica, at this point, to not just be past their prime, but selfish money-hugging bastards as well.

I don't even know if I want to talk about this last one, but I will. St... Fucking... Anger. St. Anger was Metallica's eighth studio album and the first album they released in the 2000's, a long time from 1997's Reload. St. Anger is positively the absolute worst album Metallica has released. There was an abscence of guitar solos, which is almost a Cardinal Sin in Metal. The snare sounded like Lars was pounding on trash cans. Finally, gone is James Hetfield's throaty voice that he once used in earlier albums. A quote from Bob Rock about the album states he wants the atmospehere of "a band jamming together in a garage for the first time, and the band just happened to be Metallica". That was just WRONG. Thanks Bob Rock, I think you killed Metallica.

Obviously, I have my doubts about Death Magnetic, will it be good? Bad? Meh? One good thing is that they hired a new producer (YESH!) and that producer just happened to be Rick Rubin, the guy who fucking produced Reign in Blood. To get the complete list, click here.

So here's to Metallica! I hope you make a good successor to St. Anger. PLEASE make a good successor to St. Anger.