That’s a lot of seasons

Album Rating: 3.5

Solid album tbh

Album Rating: 3.5

i imagine these kinds of albums are probably what metallica will be doing for the rest of their careers until they retire

Album Rating: 3.0

said it before but i really hope they do a slower more melodic album. would be great for where they are at and james voice would really shine. inamorta is so good and actually almost justifies it's length.

Album Rating: 2.0

every chorus melody on this album is super flat and the only exception sounds like a b-side of their weakest 80's album, i just want good vocal melodies if they're gonna keep churning out these safe records

Album Rating: 3.5

"too far gone?" and "crown of barbed wire" have great choruses imo. james did a really good job with his vocals, it's easily the highlight.



i agree, i think it would be nice if they just slowed things down again. "crown" is the best song here imo, and album made up of songs like that would suit the band well. but i imagine they feel as if they have to meet their thrash quota.

Album Rating: 3.0

wonder what would've happened to their career if people didn't bully them so hard after st anger lol

Album Rating: 2.0

[2] i routinely wonder that all the time, easily think that was their last interesting album (besides lulu). death magnetic was better but it definitely feels like it was a "sorry guys don't bully us anymore" album and they just stayed that course

Album Rating: 3.5

I think st anger’s failure was more bob rock’s doing than anyone in metallica. his idea to make an album that sounded like a debut from a new band failed miserably, bc st anger doesn’t sound like a debut at all. It sounds like a veteran band at the end of their rope.

Album Rating: 3.0

"his idea to make an album that sounded like a debut from a new band failed miserably"

Well, Rick Rubin came in next and told them to pretend it's circa 1988. Basically, the band have/had been so monumentally huge for so long, had spiralling internal struggles, sued their own fans and had a full-on '90s identity crisis, they had no idea how to "be" Metallica on their own.

They still struggle. They don't seem to have ANY idea whilst recording, what differentiates an awesome song from a piece of shit one. That said, this album's way more consistent than their last, but the highs are nowhere near as high, but the lows go nowhere near some of the trash that was on 'Hardwired...'.

Album Rating: 2.0

I kept getting these weird uncanny valley callbacks to past albums all over this thing and none of them matched or exceeded the songs they were calling back to, like there was one that sounded like you trained a robot off Enter Sandman and told it to give you a tab, and that's what it gave you and it was nowhere near as iconic. Almost nothing here felt like it was doing anything more than a weird retread of past successes with the flattest hooks I'd ever heard. Lux Æterna being my highlight came off to me as a dire sign, because even that felt like off-brand Motorbreath, a song I found to be the most forgettable off Kill Em All.

Album Rating: 4.0

"I kept getting these weird uncanny valley callbacks to past albums all over this"



unlike on hardwired i think a good bit of this is intentional here.



- "lux aeterna" feels very purposely meant to be "hit the lights" 40 years later, not only in lyrical content but the riffs literally lifted from it.



- multiple lyrical references to death magnetic songs (cyanide, broken beat and scarred)



- inamorata may as well been called "my friend of misery 2". middle sections of both songs are extremely similar, not to mention again, the lyrics



- that 2-3-5-6 "hook" to the verse riff of "room of mirrors" (another very reflective song) is nearly identical to the one in "spit out the bone"



think a big part of this tho is that they've become extremely locked in on the "metallica scale" when writing riffs these past two albums and don't really do anything all that technical anymore (moth into flame being like the only exception here).

Album Rating: 2.5

Oh the lows on this are absolutely lower.

Album Rating: 4.0

working on a list where i rank all their 21st century songs. spoiler alert: there are 5 songs from hardwired that rank below my least fav on here lmao.

Album Rating: 3.0

^ Well, yeah... there's some atrocious stuff on that album.

Album Rating: 2.0

Second disk of Hardwired sucks but overall its still way better than this



There's not a single song here on the level of Spit Out The Bone, Atlas Rise or Moth Into Flame

Album Rating: 2.5 | Sound Off

True but Hardwired has equally as many snoozers too

Album Rating: 3.0

too long same issue the band has had for like 30 years

Album Rating: 3.5

Hardwired's disc 1 is incredible, probably better than every song on here. But other than Spit, I might take every song on here over disc 2....

Album Rating: 3.5

people say there’s nothing on this as good as “spit out the bone” or “moth into flame” (i do agree) but there’s nothing on this even half as dreadful or clunky as “manunkind” or “murder one” or “here comes revenge”. So it’s perfectly right in the middle in terms of quality.