Review Summary: A headache to listen to.
Musicians can be a fickle bunch, often willing to sell their metaphorical arses for the sake of a quick chunk of change. In fact, the vast majority of widely celebrated artists with lengthy careers will throw away all their progress for the sake of commercial success, and then simply claim something along the lines of that they were "trying something new". This is as sad and pathetic of an excuse now as it ever has been, and grinds my gears whenever I hear an artist so blatantly lie to the public, and it is especially infuriating when those same artists attempt to claw back the respect of the masses by returning to their roots. In some ways, these types of albums are even worse than the low points of an artist's career, feeling just as devoid of any soul, and are a reminder that people will often try to buy their way back into your affections after any form of betrayal. Metallica are one of the most obvious examples of a band to attempt to play this Uno Reverse card, attempting to bleach out the stains of albums such as their self-titled record, the Load-Reload cycle, and the abyssmal St. Anger with their insipid seventy-four minute catastrophe Death Magnetic. Before diving deep into the sound of this album, I'm going to starte immediately that this is one of the most lifeless and uninteresting albums I have ever had the displeasure of listening to, and whilst it isn't as chronically painful to listen to as the previously mentioned albums, it is an album serving as an even larger testament to the greed of the band than any other, and a slap in the face to anyone who loved this band for their heyday.
To summarize, Metallica's early sound was one of the first examples of thrash metal. Sure, Overkill and Anvil were around a little before, but Kill Em All was the album that placed the thrash sound on the map. Songs such as Four Horsemen, Whiplash, and Hit The Lights astonished fans of metal music worldwide, with a more raw and aggressive sound than much of what was available at the time. Ride The Lightning would cement their position as one of the premier bands in the industry at the time, and Master Of Puppets would rightly be regarded as a masterpiece. By infusing elements of progression into their sound, with longer songs that meander through a variety of different riffs, tracks such as the title song and Disposable Heroes floored people upon first listen, and fans wondered where the band would go next. With ...And Justice For All, the band further expanded upon the progressive nature of those songs, creating numerous epic songs that were flooded with dense instrumental passages, perhaps only let down by a rough production and a couple of songs outstaying their welcome (the title track, for instance). After this, the band decided that it would be a good idea to cut their hair, get on MTV, and dominate the radio waves with Enter Sandman. The self-titled album, commonly referred to as the Black Album, is admittedly the best of their post-Justice era, with some catchy melodies and the occasionally titanic solo. However, the passion just seemed to have deserted the band, in their endless quest for coin. Separated into two records entitled Load and Reload, the band further sold themselves down the river with a collection of blues-influenced hard rock songs imitating much of what was popular in heavier music at the time, and aside from a couple of tracks, the hollow shell of the band was now completely visible to most fans of their early works. Whilst time has been kinder to Load than the majority of Metallica's later material, with some deluded individuals now considering it actually worth the outlay of money, it showcased yet another step on the slippery slope the band was on, and made clear that they were willing to continue pushing towards those radio stations in place of actual artistic integrity. St. Anger is a widely derided trainwreck. Released at the time when nu-metal was the "in" trend, the band down tuned their guitars, completely eradicated guitar solos, and wrote the most formulaic *** conceivable. Nothing about this album is worthy of praise, from the ***ed up drum sound, to the whinings of James Hetfield throughout the album, who here sounds like an emotional bitch. This was the final nail in the band's coffin, with it widely considered among the worst albums ever recorded, and fully deserving of this legacy. All the band could do now was attempt to salvage their reputation by putting together a shoddy mixture of thrashier numbers and the more accessible sound of the Black Album, and the result was Death Magnetic. Holy ***.
Whatever the reviews at the time said about this record, let it just be said straight away that this is not a thrash album. This is not a complete return to albums such as Master Of Puppets, but it is notably heavier and faster-paced than anything since ...And Justice For All. My Apocalypse, That Was Just Your Life, and All Nightmare Long are all examples of this, whilst The Day That Never Comes fills the obligatory "progressive thrash ballad" slot on a heavier Metallica record. Suicide And Redemption is another instrumental number, supposedly in the vein of Orion and Call Of Ktulu, and The Unforgiven III continues the story began on the Black Album. The rest of the songs here feel like overly drawn out examples of B-Sides from that album. The mixture of easy, mid-paced riffing and over-the-top choruses, along with the streamlined structures, was no doubt here to ensure that fans of the band's whole body of work could access this album, and whilst this is no doubt a benevolant attitude towards recording an album, the real motive was to suck back in the paying fanbase that largely felt insulted by the offerings of Reload and St. Anger. With this in mind, the album is no less of a cash grab than any of the previous three, and this would be almost acceptable if the songwriting were better, but what is found here are ten songs that would make a Saint swear.
*** me, how can a band that wrote such genuinely brilliant works as their first four albums have fell so far? It is almost as if there were a mystical songwriting gene or a spirit that possessed them early in their career, that was utterly absent here. Sure, it isn't the most offensive album they've ever recorded, but the pain I feel here is one of someone watching a once-great band attempt to find that sound again without any success at all. It is the musical equivalent of pulling teeth. The Day That Never Comes perhaps encapsulates my feelings towards this album best. The music itself, whilst being nothing great, certainly isn't the worst ever recorded. However, it is a strange hymn of wasted potential. The vocals here seem caught between wanting to be soft and soothing, whilst never escaping the "paaa-aaay" of their more arena-based sound on the Black Album. The long ringing notes are clearly intended for singalong crowds, instead of feeling effective within the constraints of the album format. This is an album that was so obviously intended to fill stadiums, and the fact that it tries so hard to be crowd-pleasing, it loses the ***ing attention of the individual listening at home, or the group of friends huddled around some speakers. When this song picks up, the lyrical content suddenly takes a nosedive. James has never been a great lyricist, but the whole "love is a four-letter word" section is cringe-inducing, and the riffs during the faster passage feel so derivative of their own smash hit One. The stop-start nature of this song, along with the uninspired leads from Kirk, ensure that it faceplants. Kirk has never been especially creative with his soloing, but there was also an undeniable pleasure to be gained from hearing him shred through the leads on their first four albums. That is not the case here. Whereas St. Anger had no solos, the solos here feel very much by-the-book, rather than reinventing the wheel. It is very much just a case of "oh, people were hurt that we didn't have solos, so now they get ***ing solos". *** off.
The heavier songs are probably another aspect worth commenting on, as they do certainly feel more in line with what the band wrote early in their career. The only reason I mention this is that this record is often seen as a "return to form" for the band, and one that - at the time of release - was hyped up as the best comeback thrash album by various magazines and rabid fanboys of the band. Hogwash. We get three full-steam-ahead thrash songs here, and none of them are especially good. All Nightmare Long almost takes the cake as the best song here, and the one worth recommending. Its prolonged intro builds up into some halfway-decent riffing, and it shows some actual promise. Released as a single from the album, this was actually the one that got me interested in the complete product. Therein lies the issue. Singles, for the most part, have to be compact for a radio slot, as - fun as this sounds - nobody has time to listen to X Japan's Art Of Life in its entirety on a radio show a few times a week. All Nightmare Long's single version was trimmed down and stripped of its obnoxious bulk. Despite the "luck runs out-aahhh" horse*** from James - and this truly is a prime example of the type of horse*** that slips into his vocals from time to time - the radio version of this song was an enjoyable romp, carrying itself at a brisk pace, with an infectious chorus that actually didn't feel out of place, and some urgent verses with slightly less prominent guitars in the background. Sadly, the album version adds significant padding to the song, and much of it is just repetition of what has already been heard. This is the most painful aspect of this album - the length of the songs, and the insistence upon repetition. Of course, repetition by itself isn't anything alien to Metallica, and nor is it always a bad thing. The Thing That Should Not Be, for instance, was a Metallica song that hammered the same riffs into your mind without feeling particularly drawn out. The same can not be said of the *** that passes for music on this album. Quite why All Nightmare Long needed to be eight minutes long, or why That Was Just Your Life forces the listener to endure a lengthy intro and then uses the same three riffs for the next six minutes is beyond me, but an educated guess would be that Metallica are soulless, spineless excuses for musicians without any real idea of how to write a good song anymore.
Of the three thrashier songs, My Apocalypse is the one that represents the genre in the most wholesome manner, but that is not without its caveats. Whilst All Nightmare Long was graced with a decent radio version, and That Was Just Your Life admittedly has a solid verse riff, My Apocalypse is just thrash-by-numbers. The juddering introductory riff is as disjointed as the song overall, with the power chords feeling sapped of any life by the atrocious production (more on that heap of queef later), and James' attempts at sounding angry being utterly flattened upon leaving his lips. The chorus is forgettable, although not terrible upon listening again, whilst the solo is as bad as the rest of them here. There's a break between two drumming passages from Lars that kills any flow the song has, whilst the following vocal passage is rendered irrelevant by those drumming sections, the bad production, and the insistence upon breaking it up every few bars with a terrible riff. The ending of the song, however, is where it absolutely implodes. Leading from a tremolo section into staccatto vocals from James and what might well be the worst attempt at "heavy chords" I have ever heard, this is some queef *** right from the depths of Hell. Whoever sanctioned the release of this song in uncut form is - to quote the silver-tongued Lord Worm - "only made for bullets".
And now we move onto the rest of the album. Oh boy, it only goes downhill from here. You see, whilst I can at least appreciate the thrashier songs for at least being ... thrashy ... one thing I can not condone is a band that bookends their album with flirtations with their earlier sound, only for the rest of the seventy-minute bastard to be an overcooked version of their most successful album to date. If there were two sounds that I would rather kept completely apart like you and that mongoloid brother with the lazy eye, droopy lip, and back fat, it would be thrash metal and the commercial arena metal the band shipped on the Black Album. One track where the two at least come together into the same song and don't sound totally at odds is Judas Kiss, which actually might be the best song on the album, were it not for the insistence on almost every ***ing song here being around the eight minute mark. The verses feel suitable aggressive, whilst there are a couple of passages where James actually croons melodically for a line or two, and doesn't sound atrocious. The chorus is a mid-paced attempt at blending the catchy hooks of the Black Album and the more aggressive "into abyss, cannot resist, The Judas Kiss" section is a throwback to their heavier music. Unfortunately, the prolonged instrumental passages of this song are absolutely laughably pathetic. The attempt at an ominous slow section really fails badly as Kirk's wah-pedal abuse in the solo slowly builds into a shredding crescendo that feels forced. Honestly, this bitch's performance is more forced than rape porn, and don't get me started on James' "I become your new God now." Maybe the God of all homos, but nothing more than that, James. I mean, I give this song maybe an E for Effort, but that's about it.
Sadly, I'm a sadist, so I put myself through all the other songs as well. The instrumental song, Suicide And Redemption, should be scratched from the records of time forever. This is ten minutes of my life i'm never getting back, and was torture from start to finish. This isn't an instrumental song that feels like it goes anywhere or takes the listener on a journey, instead hammering out the same riffs over and over again much like the rest of this faggot ***. I really wanna punch someone just thinking about this song again. In fact, I'm gonna provide a scenario on how the recording of this should have gone. Pat Stay should have got in touch with Eric Harris and said "yo bro, I shouted you out in my battle with Thesaurus, come with me we finna take a ride out to this studio, Crip *** loc." Pat Stay gets head in the car whilst Harris picks up the Mac-Eleven, walks into the studio, and the stop-start guitar chords over the bass at the start of this song should actually have been bursts of automatic fire from the tool. Fred Durst could then come in and record another song saying dumb *** like "Partnah", and my ears would be in a much better state than they were after listening to this ***. ***. I really don't want to talk much more about the *** on this album, so Broken Beat and Scarred has some dumb vocal patterns and a mid-paced chorus that feels like it wants to be a steamroller but instead ends up being a child's toy car bumping against your toe but never quite crossing it. End Of The Line has a bad chorus, *** riffs, and Cyanide is utterly irrelevant. That's it. End of the ***ing album. No more songs to discuss and holy *** i'm glad for that ***, *** this ***ing album.
Of course, no discussion on a later Metallica album would be complete without a dissertation on the production. On this album we do not have to contend with the appalling drum sound of St. Anger, but we instead have this overly compressed sound that feels as bad, if not worse, than that on ...And Justice For All. Whereas everything was mixed very quietly on that album, it feels like James Hetfield grabbed the wrong knob and turned the sounds up as loud as possible, which with audio quality here scraping the bottom of the barrel, was a bad idea at best. The drums feel flat, the guitars are awful, the bass is hardly heard but nobody cares for bassists anyhoo. If you're a bassist and your name isn't Geddy Lee, just retire. Please. You can't compete. Also, the producer should have turned James' vocals down as low as possible, but they didn't, so thanks for that producerbro, excellent ***ing job. Might consider calling a couple o the homies and having two put in your domepiece for that.
This album sucks. That is all. I'll probably get banned for this write-up, but I don't even care. It needs to be said. This also needs to be said - the moderator's can't even look into when someone troll negs all my reviews, so why would I care about being banned by a fascist like sowing. I'll get negged to hell for this review, it will be posted in the med thread, and that will be the end of this account. Guarantee i'm right. Won't change two things - one, I'll still be around. Two, this album is still one of the worst albums ever made.
