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Death Magnetic; a critique
Topic Started: Sep 13 2008, 07:23 PM (121 Views)
Razer
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For those considering downloading or buying this album, here is my own review of it:

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Ever since St Anger, Metallica realy have gone down the shitter. Despite a few stunning live shows, everyone knows that they just aren't the same anymore. The Black album hailed the end of the mighty thrash days of the four horsemen and brought in their status more as a more radio friendly but still highly talented and influential metal band. Load/Reload turned many fans off them, but looking at it, it was just the natural progression of the band. In moving away from the thrash sound the band focused more on melody (and james actually letting kirk write rhythm parts for a change). Cover album and Live album just to fill space, the odd new song for a film.. but that was pretty much it. Once Jason left the band, many thought it would be the end of Metallica, James going into rehab set them back even further but things turned around we thought.... THEN we got St anger. 5 years later, the band release their follow up, this time without Bob Rock at the helm. Can Rick Rubin, the same man who gave us reign in blood, give us another master of puppets or black album?

In a word - No

Death Magnetic has probably been one of the most heavily anticipated metal albums of the decade (along with chinese democracy of course, but when the fuck will that album actually see the light of day? when axl has yet another line up change?). After unfinished songs were debuted in South Korea and at Donington 2006, intrest was taken, people flooded the internet with fake tracks or poor quality live recordings, everyone eager to get a glimpse and listen to what Metallica were planning to offer. Most of us thought it sounded good live (alcohol and drugs might influence this decision) but now, the day after its been released and on a first listen, it quite clearly isn't.

The awful drums from St Anger are back, Lars still sounds like he's emptied old tin bins, turned them upside down and started smakcing them with drumsticks. James and Kirk have completely lost the raw heaviness their tone once possessed, its now empty and lifeless, pretty much like James' vocal style now too, and as for typical metallica, Rob can't be heard well, good to see some things never change eh? Oh yeah, Kirk has now progressed from just using wah for solo's and lead licks, he's now using them on riffs which sound even shitter with the effects added.... and he still hasn't progressed from the pentatonic blues fret wanking either... you'd think since the last time he wrote a song with a solo he'd learn a new scale

Listening through the tracks, there really isn't much to write home about.

The album opens with a distinctly average offering in the form of "That was just your life", complete with trademark un-interesting kirk solo and seriously weak guitar tone. It then moves onto the final version of the song many of us heard in June 2006 - "The end of the line". Completely different vocals and riffs now though since its been reworked, rewrote and reorganised, and to be honest, it sounded better 2 years ago, even if it was just a working title or whatever. "Broken beat and Scarred" doesn't even make me bat an eyelid or tap my foot along to the rhythm, its still as distincly average as the previous songs before. It was at this point, like with St Anger, i contemplated turning the cd off and banishing it to my shelf to gather dust... but then i persevered and listened to the next track, hoping something would stand out to me... It did

"Day that never comes" is quite a fitting title for this song. Its the only stand out spectacular effort the guys have done for this whole album. Not quite in the league of the fade to blacks and the unforgiven I and II's and bleeding me, the long slower paced, clean to distored styled songs with an epic solo which gets you by the balls and doesn't let go is the moment we all wished for on St Anger. It came 5 years later and it almost made the wait worthwhile. "All Nightmare Long" follows up this offering and it continues to impress. The intro gets my head going, nodding in time to the drum beat in approval, as is the foot, the riffs stand out more and the song, like the one before stands out, things begin to look up, maybe the album isn't that bad after all....

Unfortunately Cyanide is horrible and shatters the preconception of the album improving. You can actually hear the bass on this song which is a welcome surprise and Lars' kit sounds a bit better too... but Kirk throws in that bastard wah pedal onto chords in the riff now, completely killing the feel of the song. Removing the wah incident, the song sounds ok, but it could be better.... at least its better than the next one anyway

"Unforgiven III".

Seeing this on the track list my jaw dropped, thoughts flew round my head. Having always been a fan of the first 2 parts of this song title series, I eagerly anticipated what this would be like. Would it continue with the traditional styled riff from 1 which was addapted in 2? Would it have the horn intro again into something which was a mix between 1 and 2? Would it be the best song on the album?
NO!
Starting off with the piano playing something similar to the intro of the unforgiven 1, complete with stringed instrument accompanyment, this sounds promising initially. At any moment you expect the distortion to kick in like it did with number 2 but instead a different type of guitar riff follows then the song finally starts. James' vocals are possibly the weakest they have ever been on this track. Even trying to blank them out in the hope you can enjoy the backing music, its impossible to like really untill the 5:30 mark when the solo kicks in, taking over the rest of the song, improving it slightly. It was at this point it dawned on me, the WHOLE of St Anger was superior to this one song which has musiclaly took a shit upon two of the best sonbgs metallica have ever wrote purely through sharing the same name as them pretty much. Easily the worst track on the album

"The Judas Kiss" improves slightly, but it just sounds like an 80's thrash metal cover band.... oh wait, isn't that metallica at a live gig now?

"Suicide and Redemption" takes this back down the shitter. the near 10 minute instrumental comes nowhere near the previous instrumental offerings like "To Live is to die", "Orion", "The call of Ktulu" and of course "Pulling Teeth". It tries to follow the formlula of Orion, with the chord based riffs, the break from distortion to clean, slwoing the song down with intricate lead guitar over it, before going into the main solo again, but it fails in every way to replicate the same feel and amazingness of any of its predecessors.

"My Apocalapyse" hails the end of the album. Just one more track to suffer through and thats it I find myself thinking, but when I hear it, I am impressed. Like Damage inc and Dyers eve, M A delivers in the same way, fast, heavy, furious riffing. Its a propper thrash metal song, something we haven't heard the boys write for a good decade or maybe more. The only thing which lets this song down is the vocals, everything else about it is great. A fitting end to a mediocre at best album

Listening to it again doesn't change the mind either, with 3 stand out tracks, everything else being average or in the case of the instrumental and unforgiven III (way off the mark and shouldn't even be considered good).

For many who expected this to deliver, it hasn't. The five year wait for many for something to save us and restore the faith in Metallica people once had, is like the war in Afghanistan, its going to last for a very long time. Some might genuinely like this newer direction taken by Metallica, some like me who enjoyed the load direction might hate it, but for those who were hoping for a return to the 80's, you're best avoiding this painfully average album. It does nothing to live up to the hope we'd get another classic 80's style album, it doesn't even live up to the hopes for a black album styled sound either and it doesn't even live up to the load/reload era.

The only thing I can honestly enjoy about this album is that it surpasses St Anger, but it is still pretty poor compared to everything else released by the band

for all those going to the fan show at the O2 arena, be thankful the only thing you're losing money on is your transport, because the new album clearly isn't worth paying for to see live


note: i know my spelling and grammar is woeful, but thats besides the point.... hope this helps you guys considering the new metallica album
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P.Y
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I enjoyed the majority of it. By no means a "modern classic" in comparison to their stuff of the past, or indeed a "step back in time" as a lot of people may have hoped or anything (my hopes were higher when friends of mine said it was like they carried off from however many years ago. Then I heard "The Day That Never Comes" ...), but I thought overall it was a vast improvement on St Anger.

And that's not a bad thing ... that's a good thing!

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Steele
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P.Y,Sep 13 2008
08:30 PM
And that's not a bad thing ... that's a good thing!

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:lol

That's awesome.

I didn't even know they were putting a new album out. Metallica fails. And I refuse to support that band as long as Lars the Leech Ulrich is still around.
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Razer
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aye, the best bit is it improves on st anger, but they could have done a lot better in so many areas

the whole thing just seems like tons of riffs just thrown together for the sake of it, no structure whatsoever

an lars shitty drums are still present
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Organon
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I'm listening to it right now. I'm not too big on Metallica, but so far, I don't agree with most of your review; I actually quite like it so far. Then again, it is pretty late, I am pretty tired and I haven't listened to more than half of the album yet, so take my opinion with a grain of salt.

The drums don't sound anywhere near as bad as they did on St. Anger. They are, however, ridiculously high in the mix - which is very bad as it is - and Lars isn't exactly a magician behind the kit, so there's still stuff to complain about on that front. The lyrics are also terrible, but all bands suck at writin' that stuff, so hey.

From what I've heard so far, I'd actually say The Day That Never Comes is the weakest cut - Lars' drumming takes away from the ballad part, which wasn't going to set the world on fire in the first place, and the transition into the TWASH METAL stuff is kind of awkward, made far worse by James talking about love being a four-letter word. The instrumental part that follows is very cool, but it kind of seemed to me like Kirk was, at times, just throwing stuff into the song, hoping it'd stick. Especially the riff he plays a couple of times to segue into a solo near the end of the song strikes me as being there just to take up space, and it sounds like something out of an amateur band jam. >_>
ApollyonProject: The phrase "don't you" is dumb
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Kyle The Freak Rieger
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After they butchered the Ecstasy of Gold, I trust nothing from them.

Seriously that song didn't need to be fucking touched at all.
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I've heard most of it by now. I'm impressed. Thought it would be shit
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They're old. Seriously, you can't expect old bands to put out good quality music anymore. There are a few exceptions but the trend generally remains the same
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PWA ACCOMPLISHMENTS
Champion of the Universe
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Intercontinental Champion
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Tag Team Champion (w/ Tommy Dragon)
Hardcore Champion(2)
Fastest rising star in PWA History; retired as #1
Career record upon retirement: 34-10-1
Future Hall of Famer :shifty
Winner of all the 2005 awards by default (polls deemed racist by NAACP)
Winner of all the 2007 awards by default (voting once again deemed racist by NAACP)
Best RPer because I kick ass
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