Metal Reviews

Lars, mah boi... go to bed.

One of the main problems is that Hetfield doesn't seem to have a passion for Metal music anymore. I saw James on CMT's Crossroads over the weekend performing a cover of Waylon Jennings' "Outlaw Business" and it was pretty good. He looked like he was having the time of his life, and it sounded a million times more inspired than anything Metallica have done in a very long time. It sounded genuine, and I got the impression that was the kind of music he's digging on these days. The dude really should put out an album like the Rebel Meets Rebel thing, he'd be a natural for it.

a) Machine Head doesn't have the kind of reputation Metallica has. People aren't nearly as emotionally attached to Machine Head, nor do they feel as "personally hurt" (ridiculous, I know) by them.

b) Even if it WAS an awesome thrash album, people would still be naturally bitter because it's a Metallica album. And see it as just a desperate attempt by the band to regain credibility. Remember, the bitterness people have towards Metallica isn't just with their music. It's also with the bandmembers' individual personalities/ethics. As Eternal Idol pointed out, Hetfield in particular just doesn't have the passion for metal that he used to have. And everybody knows it. Producing an awesome thrash album would probably just lead a lot of people believe Metallica's trying to be something they're not (anymore).

a) It doesn't matter how famous the band is, in fact the bigger the band is the bigger the reaction the return to form album would get.
And Machine Head is as famous as a metal band can get, Metallica is famous like Jesus or something, it's different and doesn't concern people who only care about the musical part of things, like me.

b) You need to understand that everyone who criticizes them isn't a 13 year old emo, tryşng to look cool doing it, some people are their old fans who hate them for sucking musically for the past 20 years or so and don't care about the other shit they do.

That's the Ken argument. If Metallica came out with an album that was pure Thrash, and it sounded genuine and not forced, it would be embraced and would sell millions upon millions of copies. The problem with Metallica for the past 20 years is two-fold. One, they take forever to put any music out anymore, it takes 5 years at a minimum for them to even do anything, and when they do, they treat it as the second coming. Which leads to the 2nd problem, the music really hasn't been all that great in a good long while. Load and ReLoad are pretty uninspired as a whole, and should have been one album. Both of those albums have a lot of plain filler, and nothing on there sounds like it took 5 years to craft. St. Anger was just a plain mess, and everything has already been said. They hyped it to the moon, and then put out a jumbled mess of an album. And again, there was nothing there to warrant yet another 5 year layover. Here we are again, almost 5 years after that, and still no music, besides 2 generic youtube clips, and they are out there hyping the album to the moon again. The layoffs and subsequent hype campaigns put unrealistic expectations on whatever product they are putting out. The public keeps expecting the classic albums they keep promising, and are getting instead, mediocre material and downright awful material.

People don't hate Metallica all that much, just look at their concert ticket sales. I'd stil go see them in a heartbeat if they played somewhere close, it's the fact that everything post Black album really isn't all that good. Everyone knows the band is talented, there is no disputing that, and they are not living up to that potential. Plenty of crappy people make good music, that's not the issue. I hate Dave Mustaine, but he still makes good music. Metallica needs to get back to making the truly epic music they are capable of. They are as successful as they are for a reason, but they've become to wrapped up in being celebrities and have been half-assing their music. Remember that listeners with a discerning ear can tell when a band is faking it. To those people it sure sounds like Metallica has been faking it.

I'd hope all of us here would be mature enough to judge the album on the musical merit, and not on being a Metallica album.



I'm not sure how well a return to form would sell. A lot of people probably bought the Black Album "just because". How well did the other releases sell?

I want this album to be good, I really do. Because a part of me still has faith in Metallica. I don't know why, maybe it's because they were an important transition for me into real metal.

They don't have to do something like Kill em All, Ride the Lightning, or anything like that. I'm not sure I know how to say it right. It doesn't have to sound like the Black album, but it should be something truly monstrous and epic in scope. Don't get me wrong, nothing is going to sell on the level of TBA. It's one of the highest selling albums of all time, only Thriller and Back in Black have sold more copies. The way I see it, they've been spoiled. They know that something with Metallica on it will go platinum, regardless of quality. St Anger went triple platinum, but had it been something truly good it could have sold double that. They're not looking at the big picture and are playing it safe, refusing to challenge themselves and surely aren't challenging listeners ears. Load and ReLoad, while they were departures, they are safe albums. They are just generic Rock albums, and follow a formula. They could have made the best and most critically acclaimed Rock albums of all time. They did just that with the Black album, they made the most critically acclaimed and best selling metal album of all time. With Load and ReLoad they didn't do that, they rolled out some half-baked ideas and let the very name Metallica garner album sales instead of putting out something timeless that could have sold even more albums than they did. If they had done an album with songs that were as ambitious and epic as stuff like Bleeding Me and The Outlaw Torn it could have been huge. Those songs are truly worthy of Metallica, crap like Mama Said, Better Than You, Ronnie, etc. those are just plain boring songs no matter what band is doing them. Metallica needs to do something that's worthy of a band on the level of Metallica.

What I'm trying to say is, they have become Legends in the music scene in general. They keep trying to go back to being just a band who writes songs, but they'll never be that ever again. Anything less than legendary, like every album up until the Black album, just isn't going to cut it.

In response to Mintrude's question about Metallica's non-Black album sales totals:

Kill'em All - 3 million copies
Ride The Lightning - 3 million copies
Master Of Puppets - 5 million copies
And Justice For All - 7 million copies
Load - 4 million copies
ReLoad - 3 million copies
Garage, inc. - 2.5 million copies
St. Anger - 1.5 million copies

Notice the gradual decline in album sales after the Black album (S&M doesn't count since it's just a live album).

I honestly hope Metallica's next album is a winner. I really do. A part of me will always be a Metallica fan since they were basically the band that got me into metal. Even my opinion of St. Anger is probably more charitable than most feel is warranted (I think it's average at best - not very good, but not complete rubbish either). Some of their Garage, inc. covers, especially the Mercyful Fate medley and the four Motorheadache covers, show that they can still produce some pretty thrashy music if they put their minds to it. And, of course, they're still awesome live. Granted, I certainly can't see them doing another Master Of Puppets. They're just too old now, and James's voice has matured too much to really maintain that youthful scream he had in the 80's. But I can certainly see them doing something Iced Earth-ish (Eb tuning and all).

Thanks for the info. Something Iced Earth-ish would be pretty cool. With Lars talking up Trivium and BFMV all the time, I wouldn't be surprised if they started putting metalcore influences into their sound. Which would be preferable to the genero-rock of the Load twins.[/quote]

You give St Anger as long as MoP et al has had, it'll sell more. Much more. You're giving people too much credit, all of you. People will buy something that has 'Metallica' on it, well, simply because they rock, dude. You think the average rocker gives a flying fuck whether they're thrashy or not? Of course, we all want something with riffs that carve holes in mountains, but do you honestly think the band, right now, care? Look at how many records nu-metal bands sold. Good does not equal better sales, and this new record will sell well whatever it is.

doubtful, pretty much anyone I've talked to, music/Metallica fan or not has said that album is a pile of crap. I'd imagine in the next 5 years that MoP will sell more copies than St Anger. I agree that the new album will sell no matter what, but I think that it'll sell most if it sounds more like The Black Album than St Anger

I didn't mean more than MoP, I meant more than it has so far. Agreed otherwise, obviously. Stanger was hardly commercial.

Yes, that's one thing I was waiting for somebody to mention. St. Anger, regardless of what some may say, was definitely not a commercial record. It didn't have the glossy production nor the accessible verse-chorus-verse songs commercial music is supposed to have. Of course, "non-commercial" doesn't necessarily mean "good" (contrary to what some metal elitists think). In fact, St. Anger is one album that probably would've BENEFITED from being a little more commercially accessible.