METALLICA’S DEATH MAGNETIC (VINCE NEILSTEIN’S TAKE)

Metallica will never write Master of Puppets or anything like pre-Black Album material ever again. Get over it. To expect them to do so is not only unrealistic given that the members have, you know, changed in the last 20 years; it would also be the worst thing artistically they could possibly do. No one wants a re-hash, lest they suffer the “just another ___ album” fate (see: Slayer). Instead, Metallica have chosen to evolve over the past 15 years. While Load, Reload and especially St. Anger may be considered big misses in the opinions of most die-hards everyone, no one can accuse this band of artistic stagnation. Given the overwhelming hatred towards the latter, with Death Magnetic Metallica needed to write an album that harnessed the sound of their vintage material without simply treating it as a throwback, incorporating some new into the old. And with Death Magnetic, they’ve been remarkably successful at doing just that. Death Magnetic isn’t ground breaking and it’s not the best work of their lives, but it is most certainly their best since The Black Album and the best they could have written at this stage in their career. Death Magnetic is at times fresh and invigorating — and at times underwhelming — but for the most part it’s a surprisingly solid record that captures who the band is now. And for anyone other than the so-called die-hards who hated this album before a note was even put to tape, Death Magnetic ends up mostly a return to some semblance of dignity for a band who badly needed it.

Death Magnetic is in its best moments a striking return to form with a modern, refined but still distinctly Metallica edge, and in its worst moments a lame attempt to try to recapture past glory. “All Nightmare Long” is the album’s crowning accomplishment, a steamroller of a song with high-energy guitar riff after high energy guitar riff, and a flat out FIRE not heard in a Metallica song in years. To top it off, James Hetfield came up with a monster of a vocal hook to go along with the pummeling guitars and driving drum beat. Thrash riffs, dissonance, a Kirk Hammett scorcher, double-bass blasts courtesy of Lars “Yes, he isn’t that great, get over it already” Ulrich and James’ scowl make this the standout track on the record. “That Was Just Your Life” and “The End of the Line,” both at 7+ minutes, open the record on the right note, two blistering tracks that combine metallic riffs worthy of early Metallica with the groove and melodic sensibility that made Load such a hit (love it or hate it). “Broken, Beat & Scarred” follows in this vein. “Suicide & Redemption” is another highlight, a sprawling 10-minute, epic, instrumental jam complete with tons of changes (musical and rhythmic), layers of guitar tracking, lots of solos and a general feeling of bad-assery throughout.

And now for the bad: first single “The Day That Never Comes” ends up a less-than-worthy remake of “One.” It isn’t all bad, but it’s ultimately “meh” — if nothing here is better than the original, why bother? It just feels forced. “Unforgiven III” is a complete snoozer, lacking anything interesting at all; it just… Goes… Nowhere… Slowly. Most of the middle and end of the album (“Cyanide,” “The Judas Kiss,” “My Apocalypse”) is more “meh” material — it ain’t bad by any news, but it kind of just sounds like generic Metallica (“stock,” as Lars would say) rather than something special… And it’s these songs that ultimately end up really dragging down the album. Nevertheless, creative guitar playing from James and Kirk keep even these songs somewhat interesting, if not great.

Onto the production: I have a love/hate relationship with the production on Death Magnetic. On one hand, I appreciate the raw but not-TOO-raw (see: St. Anger) production. The gloss of The Black Album through Reload had to go, and I like the gritty route taken here. The guitars are raw and crunchy as a motherfucker — they sound fucking awesome. But the drum sounds, particularly the snare, miss the mark again. After the shit Lars took on St. Anger for his snare, how could he still not get it right?? Baffling. Overall the drums wouldn’t sound that terrible if it weren’t for the fact that the bass drum and snare are pushed obnoxiously loud in the mix and compressed to shit; so much so that they border on clipping for most of the album. And don’t place the blame on Rick Rubin — it should be laid squarely on the shoulders of mixer Greg Fidelman. The mix is clear, but the tones suck. The blatant use of auto-tune on James’ vocals is downright embarrassing and cringe-worthy in some places; surely he’s capable of better, and a rawer, grittier sounding Jaymz is better than the tone-perfect, robotic version we get here. I’m a bit disappointed by Hetfield’s vocals on the whole; there’s little variation from song to song or even from part to part, and I wish he’d gone for a slightly more aggressive approach. When he does vary it up the results are phenomenal, as in the aforementioned “All Nightmare Long.”

But in the end, Death Magnetic‘s downfalls don’t tarnish the fact that this is still a pretty good album. The good songs are damn good, and those alone make it worth the price of admission. This is exactly the album Metallica needed to write. It likely won’t go down in the pantheon of great albums, and it won’t save them from becoming a legacy act in the near future. But at least for now, Metallica should be able to stave off the haters. And even if you don’t like Death Magnetic at all, you’ll always have the first five records to enjoy from here to eternity, and for those five reasons you should leave the band alone. Me, I choose to look forward and acknowledge the band still has some steam left; kudos to them for continuing to keep the dream alive.

-VN

(three and a half out of five horns)