I must precede this by noting that I have loved every Metallica album all the way up to Reload. I am not one of the people who thinks Metallica lost their magic after the black album. While a departure from their original style, "Load" and "Reload" were brilliant albums with great songs that seam like they took a lot of effort and time to produce. However since "Saint Anger" Metallica's songs have become derivative and stale. It is as if they have put themselves on autopilot and stopped caring.
The only way Death Magnetic could have any relevence to Metallica is if James Hetfield dies before being able to release another album.
The album art for "Death Magnetic" is uninspired. There is a motif of an open grave with a metallic casket inside of it. Around the grave are flurries of black streaks emanating from it and surrounding it like a magnetic field. Which is a pretty cool image idea but the art quality looks like a first stage concept drawing done on a paper napkin with a Metallica logo superimposed over it.
A quick glance at the track listing reveals that there are only ten songs, each of which is an average of almost eight minutes long. This reminded me of a track listing by the band "Yes" or "Rush" and made me hope for a more "progressive" style of song by Metallica. Unfortunately what we get is a lot of repetitious riffs that frankly are a bit uninspired.
The first song "That Was Just Your Life" features the same repetitive sing songy lyrics sung over and over ad nauseam. and I'm pretty sure they've written the musical intro before about 20 years ago.
the next song "End of the Line" sound very similar to the first. as does the repetitive "broken beat and scarred." I have never thought of Metallica as "generic" metal. but now i do. Even their once innovative (for metal) lyrics are becoming banal and uninspired. What always set Metallica apart from other metal bands was the lyrics and melody synergy. but these lyrics don't seem to fit with the songs they're thrown into.
"The day that never comes" Metallica's answer to "Sunday Bloody Sunday" but with no meaning, could easily have been titled "Unforgiven 3″ or even "One 2″ because it seams to have a war theme and shares many drum parts with the song "One."
"all nightmare long" has a nice intro riff that they play into the ground. "Cyanide" has ridiculous lyrics but sounds alright. "suicide and redemption" is an instrumental, which is pretty cool to hear from Metallica once again. their album closes with "My Apocalypse" which sounded just like the opening track and at least three tracks in between. This brings me to the song I left for last: "Unforgiven 3″
While admittedly I find the whole concept of direct sequels to rock songs ridiculous, I must say, "Unforgiven 3″ was not as bad as it could have been. With "Unforgiven 2″ practically using its own name as a lyric ("could you be there, 'cause I'm the one who waits for you/or are you unforgiven too…") I fully expected to hear James Hetfield belting out "Won't you hold me, let me be / because I'm unforgiven three." Thank God what we got instead was a moving, swaying, epic song whose lyrics remind us of a sad pirate hunting for a long elusive treasure… and whose chorus reminds us of the 1992 Stone Temple Pilots' song Creep.
All in all, don't buy Death Magnetic unless you absolutely need it to complete your Metallica Collection. If you're a first time Metallica fan, go for "Master of Puppets", "The Black Album" or "Load." They contain the essence of all the songs on "Death Magnetic" anyway.
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As many of their early fans would agree, Danish-Californian quartet Metallica seemed to ... more
lose it around the mid 90s. Dropping the hard-nosed, blue-collar appeal they had cultivated with their initial slew of albums, the band began to pander to a more co...
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Advantages: Kirk's Solos back, songs more varied and better than St Anger, a couple of epics. Disadvantages: Not as good as some over-the-top reviewers have said.
Advantages: Thundering riffs, great basslines, howling Hetfield, mental solos, brutal drumming Disadvantages: Still not as good as the old Metallica albums, Unforgiven is a bit odd
dan_the_turbanator 22.10.2008 (22.10.2008)
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful
Review of Death Magnetic - Metallica
Advantages: Metallica are back, fantastic partly-thrashing progressive riff based metal music with a contemporary touch Disadvantages: Awful mixing has destroyed dynamics adding severe digital distortion with too much compression used
Oct 16th, 2008
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