The true test of any real metal album is not the ears, but the gut and the balls. A good metal record makes you want to get in a fight, fuck stuff up, and damn the consequences. Now, as anyone who’s been paying an ounce of attention knows, Metallica has made a series of missteps in the past several years, perhaps most infamously the shit-tastic St. Anger album, the pits of which Death Magnetic has the unenviable task of attempting to rehabilitate the band’s artistic credibility, critical reputation, and status as chart-toppers.
On the latter issue, it seems an inevitability that Metallica will secure the #1 slot considering that third-raters Slipknot and The Game are presently squabbling over it, and if there’s any fanbase more loyal than Metallica’s I don’t know who it’d be. Oddly, virtually every Metallica fan I know professes that everything since a certain point (pick either And Justice For All, the black album, or Load) is worthless crap and they really only go to the shows to hear the old stuff, which can still sound impressive when the band works up a head of steam. Oh, they’ll buy this record in hopes some echo of the old fire resurfaces, and they’ll listen to it at least three or four times, but inevitably it’ll be back to the classics other than maybe a track or two here and there.
So is Death Magnetic the long-prayed for return to form? No. But neither is it a total waste like St. Anger. Kirk Hammett’s guitar is back in force, and there are a number of good riffs sprinkled throughout the record. The problem is that the majority of the tracks’ tunes and riffs are far, far too flimsy and overly familiar-sounding (”Unforgiven III” anyone?) to bear the weight of being stretched out to seven minutes apiece, as is done to pretty much every song. It’s just tiresome, and I can’t see most people seeing repeated listening to this album as a desirable or pleasurable experience. “All Nightmare Long” is probably the one new song people won’t head to the bathroom during, but mostly Death Magnetic is a hard slog that fails to hold the listener’s attention — it’s hard to imagine anyone getting worked up enough over any of this music to go out and fuck shit up. In the end, it’s just another late-career two-star album by a band that has matured into a perennial live draw despite decreasingly rewarding output of new material, and that’s an old, boring story no matter how you spin it.
2 comments ↓
I have to agree with the review. The songwriting and riffs just aren’t as memorable as they used to be. The black/load/reload era may have been just heavy rock rather than thrash metal, but at least the song structures and performances were good. I think ‘tallica just got lazy.. you can hear it in kirks solos. I bet he didn’t lose any sleep trying to write the best solo he possibly could.. where was Lars pushing him to make it better?? You can hear it in the vocals which sometimes sound a little too rushed; too much like a demo. You can hear it in the drumming too..
This is a better album than St. Anger - but I think time will show that this is another ‘phase’ in ‘tallica’s career. Ppl will talk about the St. magnetic era or whatever..
I only really like 2 maybe 4 songs at best.. and the sad thing is I felt the same about St. anger - it had maybe 2 or 3 songs that I liked.. just shitty production.
I’m going back to Scar Symmetry’s - Holographic Universe - where I don’t have to try to make the songs better in my imagination.
Disappointed.
“The true test of any real metal album is not the ears, but the gut and the balls. A good metal record makes you want to get in a fight, fuck stuff up, and damn the consequences.”
Damn straight!
I might give this a try, but nothing can beat the old Metallica…which is sad but true.
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