Metallica - new song released, new album and world rour announced \m/

[Cosmo]

18 minutes ago, Stay.Of.Execution said:

how?

Got a link on reddit

[Nicklord]

People got it early and posted it online.

 

I'm going to wait until tonight, going to the cinema. I wonder how is that going to look like, I watched Muse and Rammstein shows in cinemas but never a new album

[metallex78]

So, 72 Seasons, my initial review after the Australian cinema screening tonight…

I’m still taking it all in, and there is so much to process from so much new music in one sitting. But it sounded pretty awesome overall. Outside of the singles, I got some very heavy Load/Reload vibes from the other tracks.

The riffs throughout the album are HUGE and crunchy as FUCK. So many heavy grooves going on throughout that I can’t wait to get back into it all again tomorrow.

I gotta say though, and this was only from one listen to all of it, Kirk lets the team down a little with his solos on this. That said, there are some great harmonies he plays with James on several songs, and the closing track had some cool trippy lead guitar parts that kinda reminded me of My Friend of Misery a little.

I’ll also add, that parts of Inamorata reminded me of parts of Unforgiven 2 and 3, vocals & lyrics wise. And overall, I’m not sure if it’s better than the other epic tracks of the band just yet, but it’s certainly up there with them.

You Must Burn was a bit of a let down for me, sounded like a lesser version of Sad But True and Dream No More, though definitely in similar vein.

I’ll post more tomorrow when I’ve given the album a few more listens.

Still, I come away from this extremely happy that my favourite band is still firing out high level heavy metal music of this calibre, especially this late in their career!

Edited April 13, 2023 by metallex78

[Cosmo]

If I were to release this album, I'd have made it 45-50 minutes long like RtL and MoP, chopped most of the filler songs and have the track list being:

• 72 Seasons
• Screaming Suicide
• Lux Æterna
• Room of Mirrors
• Too Far Gone?
• If Darkness Had a Son
• Shadows Follow
• Inamorata

I'd consider it a much more solid record, with a much better flow from start to finish. Plus, they could release the rest of the songs as B-sides later, profiting from their more hardcore fanbase, which could purchase them on limited edition physical. What's up, Metallica. Hire me.

 

[HazednDazed]

9 hours ago, Cosmo said:

Got a link on reddit

Would you be able to send it over to me?

[Nicklord]

I just listened to it in the cinema, and it's pretty good. I think the only problem is that a lot of songs should be shorter, almost every song has a chorus that can be cut or something like that

 

My absolute favorite was Inamorata, the visuals for that one were also very fitting. Room of Mirrors, and If Darkness Had a Son, You Must Burn! were some others I really liked as well.

[ZoSoRose]

I still think Death Magnetic is an awesome metal album despite awful sounding drums

[Tom2112]

I just finished listening to it. 

It's the first album (besides Lulu) that I've heard from them where I couldn't find a standout track on first listen (outside of the singles), or a song where I felt they were really nailing it.

I think there's some really glaring issues with labouring on ideas. There's a few main riffs where I though 'that's basically Lords of Summer or that's from Murder One'... I mean if any band gets to rip off Metallica, It's Metallica, BUT when you're reusing the same idea from a b-side from your previous album and another song that was pretty much ignored by Metallica live, as well as the fanbase because it was a bit of a miss, you have to wonder what's going on.

You can definitely lay the lions share of blame at the feet of the guys, but Greg Fidelman dropped the ball on this record even more so than Hardwired... does he say no to these guys? apparently not, otherwise Lars wouldn't have used the same drum fill on every song (there's almost no variation), Kirk would have laid down at least one memorable solo (not one to be found on the entire record) and he would have told James... not every riff is good enough. Fidelman is not getting the results, Metallica need someone who will say something is shit and steer the record and make sure there's musical variation. Let Fidelman be the engineer and get someone else to run the producer role. 3 strikes and you're out as far as I'm concerned... I know he didn't produce Death Magnetic (I also like a lot on that record). I think IF Metallica ever make another record they really need a change OR to call Bob Rock and ask him to help.

I only got through it once, but I don't think it's going to grow on me to the extent Hardwired did and Hardwired had issues too. It's 6/10 as it stands, maybe that'll bump to to 7, but I'm not really vibing with this so far. The singles they released like Lux Aeterna (good), the title track is good, Screaming Suicide is good.... I'm struggling to remember the other songs. For me I'd probably cut this record down from 12 songs to 8 and then it would be better. There is no song where I thought this fucking fantastic though.

Again, this is the first play through... I could end up loving some of these songs. After they released If Darkness had a son, I predicted the rest of the album and I'm really bummed that I was right (at least to my standards). 

Positives, it sounds like they were having a great time playing these songs and it's surprisingly live sounding. Hetfield sounds incredible, the production is better than Hardwired. And it's not a bad record, it's just underwhelming

 

[ZoSoRose]

Death Magnetic- Epic songs and a great forgery of a classic Metallica thrash record. Even had an instrumental to join the ranks of Orion, To Live is to Die, and Ktulu. It’s like Black Sabbath’s 13 but with a little more creativity. The drums are awful, though. I don’t know how a multi millionaire drummer can end up with drums that sound like this. They’re a little better sounding than St. Anger, I guess. I don’t listen to Metallica much anymore but overall, DM ages well for me

Hardwired- First half of this record is really solid for a band their age. Some catchy stuff and more variety than DM. DM was their attempt at making a thrash record like the old days to atone for St. Anger, Hardwired is them just doing what they want. Some songs are kind of Loady, some are more like DM. Cool. It falls apart in the second half, though. I think Man Unkind, Here Comes Revenge, Am I Savage, and Murder One are all completely forgettable in every way. Each song is lame with no hooks or memorable parts imo. Spit Out the Bone is among their best songs, ever, though. 
 

I’ll listen to the new album, tomorrow, but none of the singles grabbed me so far

[Tom2112]

1 hour ago, ZoSoRose said:

Death Magnetic- Epic songs and a great forgery of a classic Metallica thrash record. Even had an instrumental to join the ranks of Orion, To Live is to Die, and Ktulu. It’s like Black Sabbath’s 13 but with a little more creativity. The drums are awful, though. I don’t know how a multi millionaire drummer can end up with drums that sound like this. They’re a little better sounding than St. Anger, I guess. I don’t listen to Metallica much anymore but overall, DM ages well for me

Hardwired- First half of this record is really solid for a band their age. Some catchy stuff and more variety than DM. DM was their attempt at making a thrash record like the old days to atone for St. Anger, Hardwired is them just doing what they want. Some songs are kind of Loady, some are more like DM. Cool. It falls apart in the second half, though. I think Man Unkind, Here Comes Revenge, Am I Savage, and Murder One are all completely forgettable in every way. Each song is lame with no hooks or memorable parts imo. Spit Out the Bone is among their best songs, ever, though. 
 

I’ll listen to the new album, tomorrow, but none of the singles grabbed me so far

For me ManUnkind was the sleeper track on the record. Didn't like it much at first and now I'd find myself listening to it over a lot of the other songs. And Am I savage to me was like the natural progression after Reload, I love that breakdown crunchy riff with the harmonics. I found a few songs like dream no more, murder one, now that we're dead and Halo on fire to be the weaker tracks although I love parts/extended parts of each of those songs.

One thing is for sure, there's not one song on 72 seasons as solid as Moth into flame

[username]

5 hours ago, ZoSoRose said:

The drums are awful, though. I don’t know how a multi millionaire drummer can end up with drums that sound like this. They’re a little better sounding than St. Anger, I guess.

I'm not even sure they used drums on St. Anger. They might've just been banging on pots, pans and empty trash cans with wrenches and other tools. With that production, there's no way to be sure. 

Edited April 14, 2023 by username

[username]

As for 72 Seasons, it's a lot like Hardwired for me. It starts off really strong, has a dip in the middle where songs go from pretty nice to boring and it's generally too long. Both are trying to be trash metal records, but also have a lot of Load/Reload sprinkled in. Hardwire was marketed as a double album, but Seasons isn't. Hardwired was 78 minutes, Seasons is 77. With both records I feel like they could've been condensed into one good 45 minute album if they'd been more critical.

Other than that I do like the long song at the end of 72 Seasons quite a lot. It's interesting. Plus I like that it has a bit of a concept, personal lyrics that are a bit less cringy than hardwired's are. Overall, I like it, but it could've been better if it was shorter and therefor more focussed and with only the quality songs. 

Edited April 14, 2023 by username

[Cosmo]

51 minutes ago, username said:

As for 72 Seasons, it's a lot like Hardwired for me. It starts off really strong, has a dip in the middle where songs go from pretty nice to boring and it's generally too long. Both are trying to be trash metal records, but also have a lot of Load/Reload sprinkled in. Hardwire was marketed as a double album, but Seasons isn't. Hardwired was 78 minutes, Seasons is 77. With both records I feel like they could've been condensed into one good 45 minute album if they'd been more critical.

Other than that I do like the long song at the end of 72 Seasons quite a lot. It's interesting. Plus I like that it has a bit of a concept, personal lyrics that are a bit let cringy than hardwired's are. Overall, I like it, but it could've been better if it was shorter and therefor more focussed and with only the quality songs. 

Agree with all of this. Metallica should have been doing 45-55 minute-long albums like RTL and MOP so we don’t have all this filler ruining the album flow. Too bad we’re in the age of streaming, where bands put every material they have in the album to get more streams. 

[username]

46 minutes ago, Cosmo said:

Too bad we’re in the age of streaming, where bands put every material they have in the album to get more streams. 

Guns n' Roses already did that with UYI in the 90's though.  Also could've been 2 really great albums, 1 pretty good album and 1 pretty poor album. But aside from that idk if it's the streaming era specifically or something else as well. It's hard to pinpoint. I think something already changed with the introduction of the cd. Before that a double album (in vinyl terms) was already a big challenge and hard to even convince a record company to back. Some were fantastic (Exile On Main St., Physical Graffiti, The Wall etc), but it was just something that wasn't easily done. The vinyl record was a good limiter in terms of playtime. CD's already extended that to 74 and then 80 minutes. Which brings us back to the UYI thing and a ton of other examples too. Metallica can go ahead and market Hardwire as a double album, but really it wasn't in terms of cd playtime. It is in vinyl-terms. 

Edited April 14, 2023 by username

[rocknroll41]

1 hour ago, username said:

Guns n' Roses already did that with UYI in the 90's though.  Also could've been 2 really great albums, 1 pretty good album and 1 pretty poor album. But aside from that idk if it's the streaming era specifically or something else as well. It's hard to pinpoint. I think something already changed with the introduction of the cd. Before that a double album (in vinyl terms) was already a big challenge and hard to even convince a record company to back. Some were fantastic (Exile On Main St., Physical Graffiti, The Wall etc), but it was just something that wasn't easily done. The vinyl record was a good limiter in terms of playtime. CD's already extended that to 74 and then 80 minutes. Which brings us back to the UYI thing and a ton of other examples too. Metallica can go ahead and market Hardwire as a double album, but really it wasn't in terms of cd playtime. It is in vinyl-terms. 

Yeah but for Hardwired the album was actually spread across two CDs (like the vinyls) because the band simply felt that album “worked better” with a break in the middle, even though it all could’ve fit on one CD. Guess they just didn’t feel the same this time around? Haven’t listened to the new album yet so idk. For Hardwired I guess it made sense, though. The first disc/LP is pretty trashy, whereas the second one isn’t (apart from the closing track, Spit Out the Bone). That said, if I were them, I woulda cut out Confusion and Murder One (both are very boring to me) and just put the remaining ten songs on a singular CD.

[rocknroll41]

Just finished listening to the whole thing. Pretty good! The only songs that don’t work for me are Crown Of Barbed Wire and If Darkness Had A Son. I could probably also do without Too Far Gone.

I like how there were “motifs” throughout the whole thing. Almost like a concept album. Also I didn’t expect the Sabbath-style closing track to be a sequel to My Friend Of Misery. That was a nice surprise. Also cool how they left the “studio talk” at the end. Made it feel more “real.”

Small nitpick, but I don’t like the harsh yellow of the album art. I wish it was a warmer yellow, or a light orange.

As far as rankings go:

The Cliff albums (RTL > MOP > KEA)

The Black Album

AJFA (would be higher if the sound wasn’t so shitty)

72 Seasons > HTSD (tough call, though)

Death Magnetic (a little overrated imo)

Load > ReLoad > St. Anger (obviously)

[Rovim]

5 hours ago, username said:

Guns n' Roses already did that with UYI in the 90's though.  Also could've been 2 really great albums, 1 pretty good album and 1 pretty poor album. But aside from that idk if it's the streaming era specifically or something else as well. It's hard to pinpoint. I think something already changed with the introduction of the cd. Before that a double album (in vinyl terms) was already a big challenge and hard to even convince a record company to back. Some were fantastic (Exile On Main St., Physical Graffiti, The Wall etc), but it was just something that wasn't easily done. The vinyl record was a good limiter in terms of playtime. CD's already extended that to 74 and then 80 minutes. Which brings us back to the UYI thing and a ton of other examples too. Metallica can go ahead and market Hardwire as a double album, but really it wasn't in terms of cd playtime. It is in vinyl-terms. 

I guess it depends on how much a band/musician has to say artistically. I prefer the artist to release the work they want to release and if that means a short album or a double album, then that's just an organic result of how much they needed to release for that to be the complete work.

thank fuck Gn'R released UYI l and ll though cause who knows how long it would have taken them, if ever, to release the second part and with which band members, kinda like the second half of Chinese.

not against double albums when they're good and the length of the album doesn't feel like a chore to get through and that every part of the album feels like it belongs there.

[Stress Fracture]

Sleepwalk My Life Away is definitely getting played on the nights Enter Sandman doesn’t.

[axl666]

This is ok. Some good moments but not a strong album. I think I like about 33 minutes out of the 77. All the songs sound the same so I couldn't tell you what riffs come from where.

I'm actually finding it a bit tiring to listen to. Is the production not good in some way?

[username]

32 minutes ago, axl666 said:

Is the production not good in some way?

I think it's because of the drums. Way up front in the mix. Again. 

[axl666]

7 hours ago, username said:

I think it's because of the drums. Way up front in the mix. Again. 

I think you're right. The cymbals seem really high in the mix, to the extent that I'm noticing them more than the guitars. There's a good 30 min album in here but at the moment its way too long imo.

[Gordon Comstock]

Listened to the album once so far, there's some good moments but most songs are too long and the production/mixing isn't great... Inamorata is the only standout.

[Cosmo]

Funny enough, the song that stuck with me the most so far other than the title track and Inamorata was Too Far Gone?

[rocknroll41]

Yeah it’s only been a day and the recency bias is already starting to fade for me. Tracks 2 and 4 in particular aren’t really sticking in my head.

[metallex78]

I’ve listened a bunch of times since it came out, and to me it sounds like a mix of all their different eras. Which at this point is probably to be expected. 

I don’t know why people would think a bunch of guys pushing 60 would put out an all thrash album. 

This album as it is, sounds pretty great to me. There’s a great mix of fast stuff, slow stuff, and a bit in between. 

I think this album is better than Hardwired, and probably a solid 7/10  

But haters are gonna hate regardless 

Edited April 15, 2023 by metallex78