Metal Reviews

no...

its more like an 85 to 92, but not a classic. maybe a classic comeback.... but im not subjective. I usually agree with most of the reviews on this site. The only other time i strongly disagreed was the review for "A Matter of Life or Death" which should had recieved a 92 not an 86. Most progressive Maiden album since Seventh son of a seventh Son.... everything else seems fair...

It will have one...very soon.

Are you sure you are just not very hyped up right now? It exceeded your expectations? 92 equals a masterpiece, do you really think it is that good?

DM definately execeeded my expectations which were basically....well extremely low. After one listen my favorite track is All Nightmare Long, this song left the riffs stuck in my head. The tracks seem a little too long at times, but mostly works well.
I'd give this a 78 rating or somewhere around that. It's very enjoyable but not the masterpiece some people seem to think it is...

We got our copy of Death Magnetic today. I'm listening to it right now and so far I'm through "Broken, Beat, and Scarred". My first impression (so far) is that it's a great solid Metallica CD. We'll see how I feel by the end.


On a side note I think it's unfair for fans to expect that this band pull off another Ride The Lightning or Master Of Puppets. As a band, Metallica were dealing with different life experiences between 1983-1986. That affected their writing style just as the last 20 years has and they've evolved over time to where they now find themselves with Death Magnetic.

http://www.epinions.com/review/Death_Ma ... 4536491652

Here's my Epinions review. It should give a pretty accurate description of how I feel about Death Magnetic overall (ie. after listening to it twice).

I agree, this review is quite spot on. After listening to each track 3 or 4 times im convinced this should impress anyone that liked their older work (pre-TBA era), although people that wanted a Load/Reload sound would be dissappointed. Its a very good thrash album. I personally prefer TBA over any thrash album they've made, nevertheless I cant seem to understand why some people do not like this album when they loved their older work.
Pros : It has good solos, excellent thrashy songs (even for a person that isnt fond of thrash like me), decent vocals on most of the songs (James sounds like he did RTL and MOP), amazing bass, and pretty decent drum work (I know Lars isnt the best drummer in the world but he isnt THAT bad).

Cons : Songs are too long. I would have liked more variety on the songs (maybe a pure solid metal song similar to stuff on the TBA?), they all sound too thrashy and a couple of them are too similar.

Best song(s) : The Day That Never Comes or The End of the Line
Worst song : The Judas Kiss

My score : 85-90/100

After once through, that was my favorite song. Unforgiven III is the worst in my opinion.

Agreed, all except for the Judas/new god chant anyways.

I honestly don't think there is a downright awful song. Broken, Beaten etc. has bad lyrics but still rocks, Unforgiven dawdles through but has such an awesome solo, the instrumental has the awesome riff despite how long it is.

+1

Unforgiven III does drag a bit but overall it's still a good solid Metallica tune. My favorites so far after two listens yesterday are "All Nightmare Long" and "My Apocalypse".

All right, so I finally listened to this bad boy and my initial prediction was right: Its a completely average album with a couple very good songs, like any recent Megadeth or Slayer's latest album. The good songs are That Was Just Your Life (best song by far), The Judas Kiss, and The Day That Never Comes, which has grown on me and is a fairly good ballad. The average songs include Broken, Beat, and Scarred as well as My Apocalypse, and the bad songs are Unforgiven III, The End of the Line and Cyanide (so goddamn repetitive...). Most of the songs are way too long; Metallica needs to realize that a song doesn't need to be long to be good, though at least the songs here are nowhere near as repetitive as St. Anger's. On the other bad side, James' voice is at best average and at worst completely horrible; he's really lost it, and he is by far the weakest part of the album. For the good, Hammett sounds great on this one, and his leads and solos are generally fantastic. So yep, a pretty average album. I'll give it a 50/100, and am just happy that its nowhere near as bad as St. Anger.

I must say, the new album seems to be garnering more critical acclaim than I think anybody expected. In fact, after listening to it, I think I'm even starting to appreciate St. Anger a little more. While I definitely don't think St. Anger was a very good album, I never thought it was as bad as people made it out to be (and let's be honest - at least part of its bad press stemmed from the fact that people felt the needed to bash everything Metallica did after Load). Metallica was trying to get back on track with it. They wanted to become a metal band again, and after becoming a full-blown rock band on Load and ReLoad (Garage, Inc. doesn't count), it's only natural that they would probably be rusty when reverting back to being a metal band.

Sorry, Seinfeld, but there's nothing about St. Anger that I find rusty. Its just a horribly written, horribly played and deeply repetitive album. It takes sincere sucktitude to suck that much.

After allowing the newness and shock of a Metallica album fade away from me... my final score 85.

All the songs are good. I don't see repetiveness. I love long songs from metal and classic rock bands. Dream Theater, Opeth, DragonForce, Rush, Iron Maiden, Led Zeppilin, Santana, The Doors, Nightwish ect. My personal fav long song, clocking in at 17:05, is "In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida". Love singing it every time i hear it and the long ass drumming and keyboard parts put me in a dreamy mood.
Death Magnetic has almost everything i want, but doesn't have the complete punch that would knock me out. All the songs are unique. James vocals are ok in some songs but fine in others. Some riffing doesn't have that aggresive thrash metal. The opener should have had a single minded thrash attack, like Battery. or maybe Hit the Lights. Complex yet simple. More complex than the closer but still agressive. The chorus just wasn't too aggresive for me. I love the raw mixing. Its sounds live. The clipping can get annoying but doesn't bother too much. The drum sound sometimes reminds me of Suffocation or Nile, or something else death metal. What's mssing is guitar solos in the leads and the bridge between chorus and the next verse. That would have added points.

Most epic song... Broken Beat, and Scarred.
Weakest song... This Was Your Life.
Strongest Song... The End of the Line.
Fav Songs... The Judas Kiss, The Day That Never Comes.

Great Album.

Overall, its good, but I just wonder how much better it would sound without James' vocals and lyrics dragging it down as often as they do.