METALLICA review, "Death Magnetic"

well it’s been awhile since i wrote last. lots of busy things going on, settling in on the new job with 12 hour rotating shifts, nights, days, weekends, as well as the monthly guard drill. taking care of munchkins on days-off, spending time with wife when possible, moving into a house for the first time. still renting-but with option to “try-before-we-buy” if we wanted. nice option to have, but i think we still may need a bit more space….
in follow-up to a few earlier posts, i am happy to report a mini-review of the new Metallica album:
well, i gave them some money at Target, curiosity got the best of me, so did the single i caught the tail-end of on the radio on the drive home. i’m happy to report, and after multiple listen-throughs, that it friggan’ ROCKS. yes, i have to admit it, i was a bit let down by St. Anger, though i was intrigued by the slight adventurousness of the style it tried to accomplish. This new album, titled “Death Magnetic” is like taking ‘Kill em’ All’, ‘...and justice for all’, and ‘Master of Puppets’, throwing them into a stainless steel blender, adding a few doses of piss-and-vinegar for flavoring, a few dabs of shred, a few pumps of adrenaline, and blending the hell out of it for 5 minutes. What comes out is Old school Metallica with a fresh, modern ‘updated’ feel that old-school fans, and many new ones will sure to love.
at first, i whined that the whole album sounded like one long speed-jam, or more accurately, 80 killer mini-riffs all strung together to form what seemed like a gigantic F-you! to the fans that didn’t like their latest efforts/thought they were getting old/weak/slow/whatever. Then, after a couple more listens, the mini-riffs seemed to start forming particular differences for each song, and in fact, I now think the first 5 songs, and the last one, are truly what can be called, killer, if not epic, songs. They rekindle that high-energy, mosh-enducing mania and rush of being in the first 10 rows of the heavy metal concerts of my youth. [boy, i am truly old now, as that was 13 years ago it seems].
i am proud of them, the fact that no matter what controversy certain band-members inspire, they pulled together and gave a big, “Yeah, what are ya gonna do about THIS” one-up to fans and nay-sayers alike.
Some of the rhythms and speed fingering is actually dismaying, given their age- Kirk and James seemed to have not lost much over the years as far as dexterity goes. Lars keeps to mostly standard speed-metal poundings, but manages a few interesting timing changes here and there. The latest addition of the band, bassist Robert Trujillo, seems right at home doing what he does. Some of his bass-lines even sounded eerily similar to their old stuff. I think he will do well to stay in the band.
My 5 month old son, placed in his little bouncer, enthusiastically bounces his own little baby mosh like a silly little pogo baby when i crank this album up, its quite hilarious to watch.
I even got my wife to admit [being not quite a fangirl of metallica], that she would actually upload the single “The day that never comes” to her shiny new ipod touch.

If that doesn’t say anything about this new metallica, i don’t know what does...

Fans Rip Metallica a New One

Ya know...the first time their politics on Napster and mp3 downloading were spouted out from Lars's self-appointed band representative mouth came forth, i just mentally let them slide a bit, as this was all new territory at that point, and far be it for me or anyone to see exactly how all the music lock-down would be coming down the pipes. But twice, no, three times now....Lars has demonstrated that he is not a prodigy of forethought, nor even self-awareness.

It IS a shame too, because I actually like James and Kirk and respect that they forced the industry to take a longer look at metal as a mainstream commodity. Translation: and on a lot of their earlier stuff- yeah, they rocked.

It is a shame that when we now say "metallica", we will from this point on think next:
"self-pretentious, money-grubbing egoism' [Ie: Lars].

For my part, I will still listen with curiosity [just like with their St. Anger album] to see if there are any songs that rawwk, but it will be a tough sell for me to run any credit card numbers to obtain the music.
NIN and radiohead, on the other hand, not only remain prime examples of emergent behavior in the industry, but their success is attributed to not just the method of how they give fans their music, but the fact that (with a few slips here and their [year zero])it is still good music worth listening too.

That is ultimately what will keep me paying for their efforts.
BTW: i highly recommend both NIN and radiohead's awesome new albums.

Read the article here:

WIRED

**For the cached, now-removed first-hand review of the new metallica album:
the Quietus