Metallica - Beyond Magnetic EP (2011)

As anybody who has listened to Metallica in any significant capacity over the last twenty or so years will tell you, following their recording exploits is an exercise in building up trust, only to have it shattered and shit on shortly after... only for it to be built up yet again. And then likewise shit on again. Yes, trying to be a Metallica fan through the ups and downs of their career can be somewhat of a struggle. For some it became unbearable as early as the Black Album, and for those who persevered through the bands uncertain 90's output, they would find their own disappointment in their exceptionally controversial St. Anger. Their 2008 studio album, Death Magnetic, offered the surest sign of the band finally returning to its roots, serving as the best signifier of a potential rebirth of the band that once (and arguably, still do) ruled the musical landscape.

Fast forward to 2011, and Metallica releases the unanimously abysmal, polarizing collaboration with Lou Reed, Lulu. Arguably the biggest slap in the face to fans yet, the album is undoubtedly the biggest test of faith to any fan. With that in mind, it's hard not to see this newly released EP, compiled of four songs leftover from Death Magnetic recording sessions, as a sort of apology to the fans. "Don't mind that old hack we just dug up to sing along with us. We're just messin' with ya! Does this make things all better?" Whether or not you enjoy this will depend largely on whether or not you've given up on Metallica already, but I think this offers that same kind of hope many fans clamor for, the kind of hope that the boys will finally cut the shit and give us the album we've waited years for. The fact it also comes about at a time when the band is in the midst of celebrating 30 years of playing music is also no coincidence. And also a cash grab, probably, but these guys have been "selling out" since day one depending on who you ask, so who gives a fuck?

The EP gets off to a god start with the locomotive force of "Hate Train". Getting into the swing of things with a riff reminiscent of "Fuel", only with a little less NASCAR, and a little more ferocity, the song barrels along for about seven solid minutes. A chugging verse riff leads into a mellow, clean-guitar chorus, with Hetfield lamenting how "you took away tomorrow, still I stand". Considering the history, the lyrics display a sort of rebelling against the pressure from fans that have left the band for dead long ago. It comes off as a big "Fuck you!" to anyone who wants to argue with how they've done things. The song is a riff-machine, with the descending line at the 4:20 mark really kicking things up a notch.

The most out-of-the-box offering here, "Just a Bullet Away", features a riff that stomps and weaves around, sounding rather unlike anything else we've heard from these guys before. Hetfield's vocal performance will draw some (negative) attention from some; in particular the line, "Suck on the barrel, Suck it 'till it's gone dry". The song segues into a melodic interlude that brings to mind "Master of Puppets". It steps outside into a more progressive realm that the band doesn't jump into that often, and while it sounds slightly unfamiliar it works quite well.

My only personal weak spot on the EP takes form on the rather bland "Hell & Back". It feels like it would fit better on Load/Reload, with a clean guitar verse and a dull chorus. Things pick up around the 4:00 mark, but... overall it barely registers a "meh" from me. Kirk's solo feels somewhat uninspired as well, and sounds too much like what we've already heard on Death Magnetic. Not that Kirk ever was a super virtuoso like his thrash contemporaries, but he has played better leads elsewhere, including the album from which these songs find their origin.

The package wraps up with the blitzkrieg intensity of "Rebel of Babylon". While the riffing heard in the verse isn't a marvel of technicality, it's fast as fuck and Hetfield sounds kick-ass. Listen to the punk guitar riffing as it leads into a very Mercyful Fate-ish chorus riff. Fuck yeah! This song makes me want to run around and break shit, screaming like the rebel described in the lyrics. A very cool harmony section comes at 5:20, one of the many highlights of the track.

Looking at the EP as a whole, I wonder how some of these songs didn't make it onto the original LP. "Just a Bullet Away" and "Rebel of Babylon" would've added some welcome diversity and intensity to the set, and even "Hate Train" is better than some of the other songs present on the original album. The fact something like "Cyanide" and "Unforgiven III" made the cut while these didn't is slightly puzzling. That said, the EP itself is a fun little taste for what the band may have in store for their upcoming new album. The sound itself is rough, having not gone through any proper mixing, and it does show in parts. But overall, the guitars are loud and James sounds great. I'd almost go so far as to say it sounds better than the brick-walled abomination that is Death Magnetic's production. This won't serve to change anyone's minds if they don't care for the band anymore, but for the more dedicated fan, this is worth a listen.

Verdict: Win [8/10]

http://www.metallica.com/

Metallica - Load (1996)

Suck. It's the gift that keeps on giving, and Bay Area juggernauts Metallica caught their case right about the time they decided to abandon nearly all traces of sensibility and good taste, around 1993-1994. There have been all manner of arguments through the ensuing decade or so about why such a thing as Load was necessary, and none that I could add upon, but let's just try and apply some common sense here: The Black Album sold megabucks. It's overt simplification and accessibility brought it to an even wider market than their previous blockbusters Master of Puppets and ...And Justice for All. So why not delve a little further into the realm of hot cars, designer clothing and Billboard? Hell, they'd pretty much already arrived on the back of "The Unforgiven" alone.

Note that Load's status as 'sellout' or 'not a sellout' does not necessarily resonate or interfere with the actual contents of its music, because it would be wholly naive to think that an album is good or bad concentric to its sales and popularity. Metallica had already been 'selling out' auditoriums, T-shirts and records long before this turd arrived in their colon of creativity, and success was not a novelty. No, the real elephants in the room here are the banal aptitude of the songwriting and the watered derivation of The Black Album formula. This was a band whose 80s output set repeated standards in not only the metal genre, but music as a whole. Masters of Puppets and Kill 'Em All are two of the albums I'd considering among the greatest ever penned by mankind, and Ride the Lightning close behind. Hell, even ...And Justice for All seems like a masterwork of sonic architecture compared to any of the ensuing records, and while it pursued a similar aesthetic of 'dumbing down' the band's central, thundering aggression, The Black Album expressed it with strong songwriting...

But straight from the get-go, Load seems tailored for rednecks and NASCAR rallies. Not the cool, REAL kind of rednecks, mind you, who would strap you to a gun rack, dowse you in gasoline, read you the Bible and then flick the match. I love those guys. No, this is more of a rock record for people who enjoy bands like Creed and Puddle of Mudd. Fast food hillbillies who gorge on repetitive rock radio. Consummate middle American consumers, whose knowledge of metal music probably fails to extend past Fred Durst's rantings or Ozzy's "No More Tears". This is an album that starts off with a song called "Ain't My Bitch", and then proceeds into another by the name of "2 x 4". We're a long way from "Trapped Under Ice" or "Leper Messiah", people, but if shitty lyrics, run down alcoholic emotions and songwriting that makes Glenn Danzig seem like Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart by comparison are your thing, bid thee welcome to the crushing cornucopia of disappointment.

Welcome Load: the boring rock record, 14 tracks and 79 minutes of LCD commercial rock and roll with only minor inflections of The Black Album wrought through it's Zeppelin-esque blues groove guitars. The heaviest you're going to hear on this record is something like "Cure", which comes off as a sort of crossbreed of Danzig and 90s Trouble at best. Or "King Nothing", the big single from the album which is basically a re-molding of "Enter Sandman", complete with bedtime story lyrics in the bridge! Yeah, sure, there are electric guitars here, slowly noodling along forgettable courses that make "Sad But True" seem like a monolith of long lost brutality. I wouldn't remember a thing about "Ain't My Bitch", "Poor Twisted Me" or "2 x 4" if it wasn't for the reprehensible song titles and the fact that this is supposed to be Metallica. For fuck's sake, if you slapped these tracks in the hands of Kid Rock (where they arguably belong), they'd STILL suck.

Are there diamonds in this rough? Not a one. If anything, to distinguish the highs and lows of this flabbergasting failure is to distinguish between the 'wouldn't listen to this today or any other day' tracks and the irreversibly, offensively inane. How about "Mama Said", a flirtation with country rock which is about as underwhelming as rock songs are manufactured. Hey, Lars. James. You wanna play country music? Go jam on a fucking Hank Williams, Jr. record. He at least knows what he's doing. Want more ballads? "Bleeding Me" gives you about two minutes in the vein of "The Unforgiven" before wearing out its welcome with six more minutes of simple escalation that might, if I were generous, yield a single riff sequence of note (around the 5:00 minute mark). Or "Until it Sleeps", another of the singles here, which is arguably the best song on the album yet still not fit to lick the boots of "Nothing Else Matters".

Even when Metallica start to kick out some Skynyrd/Aerosmith-like boogie grooves in "Ronnie" they feel like a phone in. What ever happened to this band's ability to scar the listener's spirit with their hammering thrash riffs, forceful vocals and lyrics of relevance? This has all dissolved into a mockery of what the band once represented, a no compromise streak of superb songwriting which greatly expanded metal's ability to be taken seriously not only by its pre-installed adherents but by the public at large. Even the solos on this album are weak. Love or hate Kirk Hammett, but his work on the previous albums was incredibly memorable even for its lack of outright technical shredding. About the only thing that fit in flushly with this mundane new territory was Lars' drumming, and that's because it was so simple to begin with.

I can understand that bands change, that sounds evolve. I was fully on board when Metallica was considering a less complex follow-up to ...And Justice for All. I would have appreciated it more had they gone in the opposite direction, towards an even more extreme sound, but it made sense that they would not want to repeat themselves. After all, why should they have? They were already on top of the world. They still are. But laziness and the laws of adaptation are no excuses for the sort of banal songs that clutter up this clusterfuck. The world is already choked with mainstream radio channels endlessly cycling boring, formulaic hard rock music to people without the balls to experience real passion in music. Why add another? And why should that other have to be Metallica? Load isn't the worst album ever written, and it's not even the worst from this particular band, but it's not even good for a country-blues pop-rock effort. It reeks of sterile pop polish and crass, wimpy attentions, and funny enough, they smell sort of like a cash register.

Verdict: Fail [2.5/10] (and I shake as I take it in)

http://www.metallica.com/

Metallica - Ride the Lightning (1984)

In 1984 Metallica released one of my favourite albums of all time, Ride the Lightning. While it was a departure from their pure thrash debut Kill 'Em All, it was heavier, darker, more progressive, and overall better in every way than it's predecessor.

And it all starts with a nice little acoustic guitar intro...

Then around the 0:41 mark something happens. Something... magical. One second the guitars are exploding into "Fight Fire with Fire" and then 48 minutes later you're laying on the ground with a sore neck and hands which are permanently stuck making the devil horns.

When you come to you might remember hearing the biting production quality present on the album, something that you don't hear in any other album Metallica has ever made - past or future. But what is production quality without good songs?

The raging opener "Fight Fire with Fire" melts your face off with it's radioactive message and twin guitar solo. The title track is a cool midpace song with a great old-school Hetfield scream in the middle. "For Whom the Bell Tolls" has it's bell and it's catchy - and depressing - lyrics. The criminally underrated duo of "Trapped Under Ice" and "Escape" have some good moments, but they have one problem: they are on the same album as "Fade to Black", "Creeping Death" and "The Call of Ktulu".

These three songs are the heart and soul of the album and make everything else on the album pale in comparison (and that's no easy feat). First, "Fade to Black". This song is so delicate, yet so immensely powerful with it's the solo finish. "Creeping Death" is a great thrasher with a chorus that will never leave your head (and take your first born while it's at it). And finally the closer "The Call of Ktulu" which is hands down the best instrumental Metallica has ever written.

This is what metal is all about. Nuclear warfare. Corporal punishment. War. Suicide. Biblical plagues. Cthulu. Great solos. Great lyrics. So strap in, raise your hands, and Ride the Lightning.

Verdict: Epic Win [10/10] (Death greets me warm now I will just say goodbye.)

http://www.metallica.com

Metallica - Death Magnetic (2008)

So here we are, five years later, five years of waiting for either Metallica to implode or rise from the ashes of Bob Rock and St. Anger, and Metallica's eighth album, Death Magnetic, has finally been released. Though before I start the review let me preface it with a disclaimer: Death Magnetic is NOT Ride the Lightning, Master of Puppets, or ...And Justice for All. If you were for some reason expecting classic '80s Metallica, then go listen to those records because this is not the album for you.

This, on the other hand, is easily the best studio album Metallica has made since The Black Album. allmusic probably described it best when they said Death Magnetic was like "hearing Metallica sound like Metallica again." With the album clocking in at almost 75 minutes and an average song length of about 7 mins, you'd think that much like Iron Maiden's latest album A Matter of Life and Death the songs would sometimes meander and bore you to death, thankfully this is not the case.

Kirk and Hetfield have brought back the solos everyone missed so much and while they're maybe not the greatest solos in the history of metal or even Metallica history, they do the job. The drums have been upgraded from tin cans to an actual drum kit and Lars uses them to bring his classic style to the album once again. Hetfield has written some great ("The Judas Kiss") and some not-so-great ("Broken, Beat & Scarred") lyrics and he uses his signature post-Black style of vocals the best I have ever heard him since that time. But it's the riffs, which are somehow groovier than Ash from "Evil Dead 2", that make this album just so fucking enjoyable to listen to. And every song has them: sections that just make you stop what you're doing, sit back, bang your head, and just shout the lyrics (HUNT YOU DOWN WITHOUT MERCY/HUNT YOU DOWN ALL NIGHTMARE LONG) at the top of your lungs.

Death Magnetic is definitely a return to glory for the Metallica, something which I doubt anyone would have thought possible after the 90's and especially 2003. Hopefully this surge in popularity can boost the confidence of these aging rockers and help them put out a few more records that equal/surpass this one.

Verdict: Epic Win [9.5/10] (By the Light of Golden Treasure)

www.metallica.com