METALLICA'S first album in five years hit UK stores two days prior to today's worldwide release date – some have impishly suggested because the band are scared that they will be pipped to the top of the charts by Glasvegas, whose eponymous debut w
as released on Monday.
Following their high-profile case against file-sharing service Napster, not to mention the petty behaviour of certain band members as revealed in warts-and-all documentary Some Kind of Monster, Metallica are in need of rehabilitation – and not just the kind of rehabilitation that comes with the unintentionally hilarious group therapy sessions that featured in the film. A number-one album would do the trick nicely, and they don't want to be beaten into second place by a wee indie band from Glasgow.
It is no great revelation to say that Metallica have rolled out the big guns for this one. Fans have been able to follow the progress of the album on a dedicated website, but previews cannot give a full picture of Death Magnetic – colossal riffola, lightning drum fills, lithe, even bouncy basslines and frontman James Hetfield popping a vein over something or other. And that's just the extent of the first track, That Was Just Your Life, a fabulously dismissive sneer of a number.
Not one of the ten tracks clocks in at under five minutes – a few even hit the eight-minute mark. Yet there is little discernible flab. Producer Rick Rubin, in his first collaboration with the band, has done an impressive job of capturing the band in lean yet ferocious form.
There is some let-up on The Day That Never Comes, which sounds suspiciously like easy listening instrumental Classical Gas at points. One of a handful of moments on the album which draw on classic 1970s rock rather than their thrash roots, it is still ridiculously brawny and angst-ridden, revving up into a virtuoso display of fret-mangling.
While Metallica may never entirely recapture the punishing form of their 1980s prime, Death Magnetic is quite a feat of sustained athleticism for a group raging hard against middle age.
The full article contains 361 words and appears in The Scotsman newspaper.
