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'Death Magnetic' shows band's desire to reclaim its thrash metal throne
By Malcolm X Abram
Beacon Journal music writer
Published on Sunday, Sep 14, 2008
It's been more than a decade since Metallica has released a good metal album.
Sure, the '90s albums Load and Reload sold millions, but they found the thrash-metal pioneers fiddling around with hard rock. The band's 21st-century offerings so far have included the documentary Some Kind of Monster, which lifted the veil on the once-hungry metalheads. For many, the film had the same effect as The Osbournes — which reduced metal god Ozzy Osbourne to a mumbling, stumbling old fool.
Some Kind of Monster revealed Metallica to be full of pampered, self-absorbed middle-aged rock stars.
The band followed the film with St. Anger, an album riddled with guitarist/singer James Hetfield's recent 12-step success, and it was apparently therapeutic for everyone. But it also found the band sounding more like its nu metal antecedents, with a rubbery bass sound, bone-dry drums, clunky transitions and no guitar solos. It quite simply sucked as a listening experience.
Now the band is back with Death Magnetic, an album that shows its desire to reclaim its thrash metal throne, with career-rejuvenation project manager Rick Rubin in the producer's chair. Reportedly, Rubin told the band to think back to the expansive 1986 album Master of Puppets, but what the band has come up with in Death Magnetic's 10 lengthy tunes is more like . . . And Justice for All and Master of Puppets Too. It retools riffs, attitude and song structures from those two pre-rock star albums.
The band does sound energized, with guitarist Kirk Hammett once again reattaching his wah pedal to his foot to unleash screaming solos all over the songs. Drummer Lars Ulrich (whose early and vocal anti-Napster stance still leaves a bad taste in many fans' mouths) plays thrash tempos and judiciously doles out double-kick drum flurries.
The first few tracks should immediately engender nostalgic headbanging in longtime fans, as opener That Was Just Your Life successfully mixes tempos, Hetfield's staccato exhortations and harmony guitar parts. The good feelings should continue through The End of the Line, which rides a decent groove, and the mostly midtempo Broken, Beat & Scarred.
But the familiarity starts to sound forced near the middle of the record. The Day That Never Comes opens with delicately picked arpeggiated chords before turning into a closing thrash section that sounds a bit too much like the band's initial crossover hit, One.
The Unforgiven III is simply a bad and unnecessary idea, opening with gentle strings and piano before turning into yet another power ballad (heavy ballad?), with Hetfield crooning some of his corniest lyrics:
''How can I be lost if I have nowhere to go / search for seas of gold / how come it's got so cold?''
The band completes the backward trip through time by ending the album the same way it ended Master of Puppets and . . . And Justice for All, with a long instrumental. The nine-plus minute Suicide & Redemption is followed by a relatively short thrash workout, My Apocalypse.
The coupling isn't as strong as on the earlier albums, primarily because the instrumental's main riff is subpar (this is where the loss of original and interesting bassist Cliff Burton still rears its head) and can't sustain the tune for its length. By contrast, My Apocalypse's chugging riff and fast tempo could make it a new concert staple.
Metallica's recent output felt like a death knell for a once-great band. The band obviously has heard the bell toll, too, and Death Magnetic is designed to silence that sound. But after a few spins, the album becomes like the shiny red convertible, hot young girlfriend or shiny new toupee that aging men acquire to remind themselves that they've still ''got it.''
Even with the stench of collective midlife crisis emanating from its grooves, Death Magnetic is Metallica's best album of the new century and many longtime (pre-black album) believers will be satisfied by the fact that the band sounds like its old self again.
Malcolm X Abram can be reached at mabram@thebeaconjournal.com or 330-996-3758.
It's been more than a decade since Metallica has released a good metal album.
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