CD Review: Metallica – Death Magnetic
Score: 4.5/5
So, a new Metallica album…. being a total fanboy, its probably not a surprise that I love it. Hell, I’m one of the 3 people who likes St. Anger. As for why I like it…. you’ll have to read on.
The first thing that is really new on the album is the tone. There has been a whole lot of controversy over the mixing/mastering and the use of compression, but I think it works, mostly. Sure there are a few times it clips a little, and I personally would of turned the knob from 11 back 9, but a compressed sound works quite well for metal (especially the Thrash kind).
The other tone aspect is that of the instruments. The drums sound “normal” again, but then I thought the snare sound on St. Anger completely fit, or even set, the stripped down pure anger tone of that album. The bigger thing on this album is that jaymz has finally discovered that the “mid” knob on the amp should be turned up and not down. The riff-thm guitars have that oldskool bite that I love…. more like slayer than anything they’ve done before. With the guitars not being scooped to death, it also gives the bass a much easier time when it comes to being heard (which despite rumors to the contrary was the reall reason the bass was gone on AJFA).
Of course, all the tone in the world means nothing if you haven’t got decent songs to use it on. And they do. The riffs, song lengths, solos all harken back to the pre-black album days…. but they definitely show through some of the groove and rawness that was stomping all over St Anger. Kind of a best of both worlds thing, mostly anyway….
The songs are good overall, with tracks like Broken, Beat & Scarred, All Nightmare Long, Suicide & Redemption and My Apocalypse being the standouts.
Sure it isn’t perfect…. the ballads (Unforgiven 3 and The Day That Never Comes) have taken a while to grow on me, and the still don’t quite make it. Kirks solos sound a little too raw and improvised at times, but that could just be cos they don’t sound any better than mine. The lyrics, are typical Hetfield, and whether they seem like mashed together metaphors or totally deep can be totally modd-dependent.
Overall, this isn’t their best album…. when the high bar is a classic like Master of Puppets it is hard for anything to compete, but it is definately a Headbanging Thrash Metal album.