A new album from the metal overlords is an odd thing these days. There is no questioning Metallica is one of the biggest bands in the world in any genre, selling out football stadiums from San Francisco to Sao Paulo but they haven’t released an album of fresh material in over 8 years, their largest gap during their 35+ year career. Were they missed? Is anyone clamoring for new Metallica?
That time away allowed the band to dig in and come up with Hardwired…To Self Destruct a double album (yet still shorter in length than Load and St. Anger). While the album was delayed numerous times, it could not have been released at a better one with the chaos broiling over post election. Never dealing with politics directly Metallica has always skirted the fringes and lots of Hardwired…To Self Destruct lyrics, along with the aggression can be instantly injected into the current world climate.
The opener “Hardwired” is the briefest and best track on the whole album as it comes out and states it’s tough intentions in a compact effective manner. Snare runs, choppy guitars and whiplash speed set the desperate tone as James Hetfield clearly laments “We are so fucked/Shit out of luck”; the punkish thrash metal is the best Metallica has sounded in a long time.
After that the album goes into what can only be called classic Metallica formulas; long songs with repetitive metal motifs, solos of all sorts, sterile production and vague lyrics about war, death and destruction. There are the upbeat rocking metal monstrosities (“Atlas, Rise” and “Here Comes Revenge”) alongside the more head-banging, groove oriented, down tempo numbers (“Now That We’re Dead” and “Dream No More”). The band even slightly dips into their metal-meets-ballad land with “Halo On Fire” and returns to punk/thrash speed metal with album closer “Spit Out The Bone”.
All of these tracks are solid in construction, playing and performance; all also go on for at least a minute and a half too long. There are a few standout elements, the laser riffs on “Moth Into Flame”, the marching drums from Lars Ulrich on “Confusion” and Robert Trujillo’s bass runs on “Manunkind”. The only issue is that Metallica has done this all before, only on the tempo shifting, huge grooving “Am I Savage” does it feel the band is slipping out of their comfort zone (and successfully so).
You can almost point out exactly what song from the band’s own past discography these tracks sound directly like and that self redundancy is an issue. A band Metallica’s size faces this dilemma with any release dating back at least 15 years, experiment and grow or tread the same path that you yourself blazed and created? When this band has taken musical risks they haven’t succeed (case in point: Lulu) and playing it safe in their patented style won’t tarnish their legacy, but won’t do anything to improve it either.
A new album from the metal overlords is an odd thing these days. There is no questioning Metallica is one of the biggest bands in the world in any genre, selling out football stadiums from San Francisco to Sao Paulo but they haven’t released an album of fresh material in over 8 years, their largest gap during their 35+ year career. Were they missed? Is anyone clamoring for new Metallica?
