Artist: Metallica
Label: Mercury Records
Released: 2008
Rating: 1/5
It’s official: Metallica have gone from mighty metal royalty, the kind all their peers once eyed with awe, to a cheap garage band. If you were hoping the dismal Saint anger was just a fluke born of a temporary creative drought, or merely a short-lived and far-from-serious experiment in finding themselves, you were sorely mistaken. The letdown stings even more when you remember the lofty promises and meaningful words from a band that talked up a return to its roots and tradition, only to deliver something any snot-nosed kid with a Korean Ibanez and a laptop could “throw together and put out” in their basement. But let’s take it from the top.
It is a more complex and technically demanding project than its predecessor, with plenty of riffs, tempo changes and dynamics, but sadly it has little in common with their famous older studio siblings. A slightly more attentive ear will first be bothered by the album’s production. Probably out of a panicked fear of sounding “archaic”, in which you can see all too clearly a bow to trends, it’s still dry as a bone, and especially on the vocals and drums it fights every last bit of reverb and delay like the devil fights the cross. Thanks to these aggravating circumstances, Lars’s snare still sounds like a yogurt cup, while Hetfield’s voice is totally smothered and useless, which we already noted with regret on their previous album (and listening to that one, by the way, filled the author of this review with holy rage).
Rick Rubin surely deserves a good chunk of the blame for this production too. He’s best known for his “stripped down sound”, typical of bands like Slayer and Danzig (to mention only those of his protégés who are close to Metallica in spirit), which makes it clear the guys went down this road entirely on purpose. But let’s not forget that Slayer actually grew up on a minimalist sound that became an important part of their overall identity over the years, whereas with this asceticism Metallica lost the lion’s share of what made them famous in the first place. Reign in Blood is light-years away from Master, which the famous Michael Wagener mixed and thereby left a fateful stamp on, and also from the somewhat less polished And Justice for all. True, times have changed, but at the same time this approach seems likely to do Metallica far more harm than good, since it will drive away most of the old fans, while with the band currently drowning in gray, soul-crushing mediocrity, it certainly won’t win over any new ones.
The second charge that’s definitely worth mentioning is the neglect of harmony, which the late Cliff Burton introduced to his bandmates right at the start of their musical career. Hammet himself admitted a while back that Burton opened the door to a completely new world for them and revealed new musical horizons that are by no means at odds with modern rock, and thanks to which the band was able to rise so far above the other thrashers in the first place. Let me just mention Orion, Fade to black or The call of Ktulu. You could say, then, that it was the classically trained pianist Cliff who turned James, Kirk and Lars from angry, dissatisfied young men, who had moved to San Francisco out of disgust with the softened-up Los Angeles scene of the time, into respected musicians. Who knows how Metallica’s story would have unfolded if, on that unlucky September night in 1986, a careless bus driver hadn’t condemned the promising bassist to death? Of course, questions like that are pointless, but we can briefly sum up the band’s history after that tragic event and conclude that Burton’s refined harmony, which complemented Metallica’s majestic lyricism of the eighties in the best possible way, has lately been replaced by Hetfield’s pathological aggression and his inarticulate outbursts of rage, which no longer have much to do with music. And that’s one of the main reasons for the downfall of what was once the biggest metal institution.
A few quick words on the songs. The first three acts of Death magnetic are a confused, clumsy mix of everything Metallica served up in the second half of the nineties and the early part of this millennium, while the fourth, The day that never comes, will probably be remembered more for its music video than for its music. All nightmare long speaks for itself, and The Unforgiven III is a painfully predictable continuation of the saga from earlier records. A few promising riffs and tastefully played solos turn up only on Suicide & redemption, and even then only in the first half, and the closer, My apocalipse, leaves us just as cold.
Those of us who’ve already crossed the thirty mark and got to know Metallica when they were at their peak, who enjoyed to the fullest (apparently) unrepeatable albums like Ride the lightning and Master of puppets, have already made peace with the fact that one of our favorite bands retired long ago. But I really feel for the youngsters, who only know the kind of sadness that, in the form of one audio-visual medium or another, followed their last solid effort, the now-cult “Black album”.
Lineup
James Hetfield – vocals, guitar
Kirk Hammett – guitar
Rob Trujillo – bass
Lars Ulrich – drums
Production
Rick Rubin
Tracklist
1. That Was Just Your Life
2. The End Of The Line
3. Broken, Beat & Scarred
4. The Day That Never Comes
5. All Nightmare Long
6. Cyanide
7. The Unforgiven III
8. The Judas Kiss
9. Suicide & Redemption
10. My Apocalypse
