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album reviews

Metallica



Death Magnetic 7½ ( 2008 )
That Was Just Your Life / The End Of The Line / Broken, Beat & Scarred / The Day That Never Comes / All Nightmare Long / Cyanide / The Unforgiven III / The Judas Kiss / Suicide And Redemption / My Apocalypse

‘Death Magnetic’ has been been mixed into oblivion. I don't want to labour the point, but there really is no dynamic range here at all. It's a modern trend and it hurts audiophile ears - everything turned up to a Spinal Tap '11'. For the technical amongst you, I personally encoded the CD to LC ACC format and i'm listening to it in a nifty new Russian based media player, 'AIMP2'. Anyway, heavy? Ah, yes. Metallica will beat you into submission over seventy-five minutes. They'll take their speedy riff-age of old, marry it to fairly average lyrics and the usual James Hetfield hollering. At the same time, Lars Ulrich pounds away on the drums – the man who never evolved. There’s a film in that idea, somewhere.

Lead single 'The Day That Never Comes' isn't at all typical of 'Death Magnetic' and you'll be fairly pleased to hear that. On the other-hand attempts at fan pleasing of a different kind are writ large all over the opening two numbers. 'That Was Just Your Life' begins with something akin to a heart-beat. What, we've come off the life-support machine now, have we? The speed of the guitars are impressive and we have a tune that recalls 'Justice' very much indeed. Well, Rick Rubin stupidly informed the band he wanted them to write the lost, second part of 'Master Of Puppets'. How’s that going to happen, exactly? 'That Was Just Your Life' gamely tries to stick to just such a template, although rarely reaches the same heights as either ‘Puppets’ or ‘Justice’. 'The End Of The Line' will have you dropping your Jack Daniels on first listens. Repeated listens lessen initial giddy thrills, the composition itself is just too messy to rank as certified Metallica gold. ‘Broken, Beat & Scarred’ perhaps is certified Metallica gold - one to stick on your I-Pod Metallica playlist, certainly.

Annihilation, suicide. Ten minutes of ‘Suicide and Redemption’. Unforgivably, we also get ‘The Unforgiven III’. ‘My Apocalypse’ closes the album with brevity, a mere five minutes of crunching riff-age this time out - other songs regularly exceeding seven minutes each. Rick Rubin may have succeeded in bringing the guys back to their roots, but many of these songs could use a little editing. Overall then, 'Death Magnetic' is an entirely predictable album in one sense. Metallica have stepped back to produce an album that somehow could have fitted right in-between 'And Justice For All' and their 1991 self-titled commercial behemoth. Producer Rick Rubin and a talented new bass-player contribute and 'Death Magnetic' manages to induce a cautious optimism.

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Readers Comments Bob Rockville Not your greatest review. Your intro reads like a sidenote and you forgot to mention the best track on the album (All Nightmare Long). Nicolas Argentina Please, please, listen to the Guitar Hero III mix of the record (google is your friend ;). It does not sound very compressed. Vlada Serbia Yeah, this album is quite an achievement for Metallica at this point of their career.They have successfully avoided becoming stale by constantly trying to introduce new elements into their music, sometimes with good results(Load) and sometimes without fully realizing their initial concept(St Anger).With this one they made a conscious effort to try writing songs the way that used to in their early days.Of course, they couldn't do it the same way due to the years of experience.That's why these songs sound like some kind of a strange mixture of the classic Metallica sound and bluesy riffs from Load.Surprisingly it works great.The only thing that bothers me is the fact that some songs seem to be a bit forced out having different sections not blending well with one another.Also it seems that some band members' interests lie elsewhere.The album simply doesn't come across as a sincere one.It's four great musicians doing their thing as best as they can without involving too many emo! tions in the process.