ROCKET REVIEW: METALLICA – Death Magnetic (CD/LP)

Metallica

The legendary American thrash metal act had some serious s’plaining to do to their super-pissed off legion of fans, who started casting doubts towards their metal Gods, once the general consensus felt the act turned away from their early melodic-speed metal roots (following the untimely death of their beloved bassist Cliff Burton in ’86), in which they sadly traversed ultimately a much more commerical route, dropping the big time bucks on larger recordings and video production budgets. 1991’s multi-platinum selling “The Black Album” undoubtedly took them all over the world, only soon to be followed by the critically panned “Load” in 1996 and the following year’s even bigger disappointment “Re-Load”, leaving the hardcore fans scratching their heads to the now tamed, Southern-infused direction they were taking. Had this incredible heavy music phenomena become a middle-aged alternative rock turd? 2003’s “St. Anger” did little more to help save this faltering goliath, though they’d at least finally replaced the bored Jason Newsted with the brutally good Robert Trujillo. Much to my delight, “Death Magnetic” and Metallica in 2008 attain the jeweled crown of heavy music, finally ending the recent parade of let downs, once and for all.

Track one’s “That Was Just Your Life” starts out with an intro of a man’s heart beating, which may be a play on those who threw too many “This band is dead” statements in their direction. Its brillance is in being a metal song that shows us a more old school sounding Metallica while still retaining a more modern groove/tempo, easily the best thing produced since the “And Justice…” album. It features the unrelenting, double-bass attack of the seemingly ageless Lars Ulrich, a man who shit kicks from second one until the last note, clocking in at just over seven minutes with its whiplash, ferocity of pure-adrenaline injected musical craft that literally made me snap my neck while headbanging out of control til the song’s end. Next up, “The End Of The Line” drops a vicious hell-hammer straight to the head with its pummelling, fast and steady fury pace that is about as blunt of a statement as a rock band can make to its critics.

“Broken, Beat & Scarred” hits even harder, establishing itself right out the gate as the biggest highlight yet, while “The Day That Never Comes” next gives us an even more complex, multi-layered, melodic-feel, with the middle eastern flavored “All Nightmare Long” and rampaging “Cyanide” following and taking us through a non-stop array of masterful riffing and soloing from both Hetfield and Hammett on guitars. However, just past the 40 minute point the worst possible thing happens when the momentum is blown and the wheels nearly begin to come off the tour bus as we’re subjected to the half-hearted, throwaways of “The Unforgiven III” , “The Judas Kiss” , and one seriously long and languishing instrumental called “Suicide & Redemption”. I must say, I think they would have done much better here by simply tightening these tracks up by cutting two minutes from the length of each of these predictable clunkers.

The closer “My Apocalypse” seems to have that ‘tin-can’ being beaten drum sound that made “St. Anger” so damn annoying, but it is effective enough to make it out without going off the deep end like the previous earaches, lending more to the sum of this overall solid outing and highly refreshing return to form from a band that many thought would never make it off the therapist’s couch.

Rocket