Mar 04 2009
Metallica’s Death Magnetic
Oh Metallica, when will we ever see the end of you? It seems like only yesterday when you shamed us all with St. Anger, but now you’re back with you’re latest album: Death Magnetic.
Produced by super producer(!!!) Rick Rubin, the album takes the band back to their roots. This means they wrote all the songs before they started recording, and there are more instrumental breaks. And yes, more guitar solos.
The opening 7 minutes are devoted to a generic sounding Metallica tune, That Was Just Your Life. The introduction was semi-decent, and despite some guitar “rippage”, the song is pretty pathetic overall. The chorus reminds me of lyrics I would write in highschool:
“Never stop the bleeding now, Almost like your fight; And there it went, Almost like your life.”
The first single, The Day That Never Comes, is actually enjoyable. Purists may write it off as crap, but this song is the only one out of the entire album that has a memorable melody. The choruses are nothing short of epic, and will stick in your head for a long time. I’m glad they released this as a single so that people don’t have to sift through the crap to get to it.
I can’t even come up with any other songs to recommend. They all seem to go like this: Palm mute, Palm mute, Cymbal Mute, Fast drums/guitar riff, then James Hetfield says something - Repeat!
Overall I thought that this album sucked balls. As you may have guessed, I was never a Metallica fan, so I guess it makes sense that a lot of people will disagree with me on this one. Oh well…
Sincerely,
BW.
I don’t disagree at all. I kind of liked it when it first came out, but then it just kind of falls off. I was a fan right up until Load. Load did nothing for me as reload did nothing else. Looking back, they are more rock albums than anything and they are memorable, just not in a Metallica sort of way. St. Anus, well, what can I really say that hasn’t already been said.
The best thing about Death Magnetic is Suicide And Redemption because there are no lyrics and it’s actually listinable. Overall I think it was a good attempt to get back to their roots, but it was poorly executed and let’s be honest, Rick Ruben really didn’t have much to do with the record at all. It’s just his name on the back.