Lars Ulrich Says Metallica’s Next Album Will Be Their Best
Metallica are deep into “some pretty serious writing” writing for their next album. After first floating the idea of working on new music while under quarantine in April, by June Lars Ulrich had revealed that Metallica were, indeed, in writing mode. James and Rob have both said they’ve been busy working on new songs, too, and Kirk Hammett has trumpeted the fact that he has over 600 song ideas recorded (after infamously losing his cell phone with 300+ ideas prior to the sessions for Hardwired). The band were having some technical issues collaborating over the internet and were looking into doing so in-person in a bubble last they checked in.
Lars recently spoke to Louder Sound and briefly chimed in on what that next album will sound like with a bit of self-aware humor, saying:
“It’s the heaviest thing, the coolest. But all kidding aside, if it wasn’t because we thought that the best record was still ahead of us, then why keep doing it?”
I fully get that musicians need that hunger and drive to outperform themselves to keep doing what they do, but is there a single soul outside the four band members (or maybe just Lars) who truly believe their next record will be their BEST? Hardwired was pretty good, I’ll give them that — that’s “pretty good” as far as what we can expect Metallica to do in (then) 2016 — but I mean, like, c’mon, ya know?
Still, Metallica are an economy unto themselves, and new Metallica music means a crapload for us bloggers to write about, music stores and distros making money, touring and local crew gainfully employed, and so on and so forth. Metallica releasing new music is a GOOD thing! And a part of me — nay, most of me — believes Metallica are capable of putting out something decent… just not their best ever.
Metallica have managed to stayed busy during the pandemic, racking up over a billion Spotify streams in 2020 alone. In May, they released a semi-acoustic, reimagined version of “Blackened.” Then, in August, they hosted a pre-recorded drive-in concert at hundreds of outdoor movie theaters and released a recording of last year’s S&M2 concert. A re-worked version of “Nothing Else Matters” is scheduled to appear in Disney’s upcoming Jungle Cruise movie starring The Rock and Emily Blunt. And the band hosted a virtual charity concert in November to benefit their All Within My Hands foundation, raising over $1.3 million.
