Metallica - New Album First Listen
Being a fan of the Danish-Californian heavy metal quartet Metallica is hard work. They?re the quintessential band of two halves, pulling in millions of fans from 1983 to 1995 with five mostly excellent albums, which ranged in approach from youthful violence to radio-friendly hummability. In 1996, however, Metallica released the first of a shockingly poor string of alternative-rock, covers and live records, finishing up with 2003?s terrible St. Anger, the most disappointing metal CD ever released. Staying loyal to them after this many years isn?t easy, frankly.
So what, you might be thinking ? all bands have their creative peaks and troughs, surely? Well, you?re not getting it. Metallica aren?t just a metal act: they are the Led Zeppelin of their generation, a band which your kids will revere 30 years from now to the same degree as we do the Beatles and the Stones today. To love them is to really love them. Their work ethic (which other band spends three years on the road at stadium level?) and their damnable songwriting ability (leading to songs of visceral power which you can still sing in the bath) has made them bigger, heavier and more essentially here than anyone else. That?s why we still pay attention to them after more than a decade of recorded dross. That?s why even their drummer Lars Ulrich?s petulant sparring with Napster in 2001 and the painful-to-watch Some Kind Of Monster documentary (made during their group-therapy sessions) don?t outweigh the hope we all felt when it was announced in 2007 that none other than Rick Rubin would be helming their new studio album, the first in five years.
Rick Rubin, as any fule kno, is responsible for launching the careers of many a fine band (including Slayer, Metallica?s sometime contemporaries), but ? more relevantly in this case ? has also revived the fortunes of creatively ossified artists whose moment in the sun has passed, such as Johnny Cash and the Red Hot Chili Peppers. Could The Beastie Beard breathe life into Metallica? God, we hoped so, simultaneously aware that Ulrich et al have raised and dashed our hopes before.
Shrouded in the type of secrecy normally reserved for military operations, we were lead into a darkened room and followed in by a man in black muttering something about Metalica having previously issues with ?illegal downloading problems ? you may have heard about it??, and who then proceeded to play a number of songs to us at great volume.
Initial listenings suggest that it is a vast improvement on 2003 album St Anger, the making of which provided the subject for the band?s infamous documentary Some Kind Of Monster.
Informally described by the Metallica camp as ?9 epics and one song in one album?, the quartet?s new material has been produced by Rick Rubin as is currently at the mixing stage.
Though all the tracks are currently untitled (?Flamingo? and ?We Die Hard? appear to be two working titles) we can confirm that most songs clock in at seven or eight minutes in length ? including the lead single, which takes a more down-beat approach than most of the material on the album and has shades of their Grammy-winning epic 1990 breakthrough single ?One?.
We can also report than it is unlikely Metallica fans will be disappointed with the new material, which contains arguably their most complex, multi-layered arrangements yet and sees a definite return to the bludgeoning, relentless galloping riffs of their Kill ?Em All / Ride The Lightning era.
The drums sound a lot stronger this time too, while Rob Trujillo?s bass lines feature more prominently in the mix and there even touches of Eastern-tinged guitars. The ten songs that will comprise the finished album clock in at 75 minutes in length.
It is not known whether ?performance enhancement coach? Dr Phil Towle was involved in the making of this album.
We suspect not.
http://www.thequietus.com/2008/06/metallica-new-album-first-listen/
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