Weekly > Reviews
Metallica - Death Magnetic
I wouldn’t ever claim to have been a Metallica fan in my distant past as it would be an outright lie. Despite someone posting a comment to the contrary on this site a few weeks ago, i’ve never liked rock music, not in the sense of metal at least anyway. Sure Led Zep, the Rolling Stones etc no problem, but I consider them more rock ‘n’ roll than outright rock.
Metallica have always been one of those bands that seem to be almost a walking, living cliche of both themselves and rock music. They hold their guitars like “they really mean it maaaan”, they dress in black, they’ve got long hair (or had at least), the songs are all overblown and over do it on the guitar solo’s…yet they’ve sold god knows how many records, sell out huge shows in minutes and have millions of fans that have been counting down to this albums release, despite St Anger being roundly thought of as crap.
For me though I quite liked the black self-titled album, but that i’m guessing is thought of as too commercial for them as a band, I have a grudging respect for Master Of Puppets and Ride The Lightning, but they just don’t really grab me, I can’t connect with their songs or how they put them across.
Listening to Death Magnetic it initially hits me that this is probably their best album for a number of years, it’s still got their trademark sound in the guitar and the bass playing namely, but they have some of their ferocity back as well. That Was Just Your Life is the first indication, but tracks like Unforgiven III , All Nightmare Long (really nice intro on this one by the way) and the way The Day That Never Comes builds hints at what i’d like to see more of.
- Metallica
- Death Magnetic (2008)
- Category: Album
- Label: Universal / Vertigo Records
- Reviewed by: Kev
- Published on: 22 Sep 2008
- Comments: 0
- Beat Surrender Rating:
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Add to favouritesThe problem with the album though is two-fold. Firstly it is way too similar, a lot of the songs blur into one and even the riffs and solo’s don’t really go out on a different tack at all. Probably the biggest issue I have with it though is the length of the tracks, most are around the seven minute matk with a couple heading up towards ten minutes, they seem padded out with guitar and drums and don’t really say a great deal lyrically, although judging by Broken, Beat & Scarred with “what don’t kill you, make you more strong” then that could be for the best.
Maybe i’m not the right person to review this, but for me I think rock music has moved on a hell of a lot over the years with bands like Queens Of The Stone Age, At The Drive In etc taking things to new frontiers, Metallica seem stuck at the border and lacking ideas listening to this.
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We waffle on enough without letting you lot do it too. Comments are limited to 300 characters.
Try and keep on topic if you can and no insulting the contributors. All hate mail can be addressed to Kev.