Metallica has always been my favorite band and I’m always excited to learn they’re still making music.
I’m probably 2/3 of the way through the album and, overall, I like it. Modern Metallica is always hard to digest in binge form because, let’s be honest, their songs all basically sound the same. That being said, it’s a good album that’s closer to Death Magnetic than the things they’ve done in the 90s.
If I had a complaint it would be too much use of the wah bar on the guitar solos and the songs don’t have enough variety of rifts. But regardless it’s a pretty solid album from a band that just never seems to quit.
Metallica hasn’t been worth listening to for over 20 years, IMO. Death Magnetic sucked. I sold my copy the day after I bought it and deleted all the mp3s.
Exodus’s Atrocity Exhibit albums are prolly the best mainstream thrash (there’s a phrase, huh?) in recent years, although their last album was lame (but mostly because of Zetro’s vocals; I never could stand his voice).
For your sake, I hope the tour stops near you and that you enjoy the show. Just not my cuppa.
I like most of what I’ve heard so far. I heard the first two songs weeks ago, then another six last night. I’ll listen to the rest when I get home.
I do think it’s better than Death Magnetic. One song I thought could pass for a Maiden song, and another could pass for a Black Sabbath song. I do like that the songs are getting more progressive.
However, I don’t quite understand how they expect to sell this album…they made a video for every song on the album and released all of them two days before the release date, and the album is available to stream through amazon prime.
Also: Hammett has always been married to the Wah pedal, so that isn’t anything new.
Listened to the first three songs. So far, meh. It would make good background music because it sounds generically Metallica, kind of like ACDC sounds generically ACDC. If one of y’all who’ve heard the whole thing will recommend any especially good songs, I’ll check 'em out.
Metallica really has declined in quality. I mean, they seem cool and all, but they just don’t have the ability to create new and interesting music. They stopped developing and evolving and just put out adequate music every few years. I think they try, but who knows why they were able to release a few great albums in rapid succession in the 80’s? They were better, then.
Lulu was pretty experimental and everybody seemed to hate it, so maybe they’re just not all that good at experimenting. Usually when a risky album flops like that, the artist will go back to playing it safe on the next one.
I’m trying to think of artists who kept pushing themselves into new creative directions even late into long careers, but I can only come up with solo acts. I think there’s something to the idea that a Bowie or a Zappa could just try something weird whenever they felt like being weird, but if you’re in a band you have to persuade the other members to get on board with it.
Ok, because of this thread and because I do like to try (new) things, I went to YouTube and listened to 4 of the songs from this album: Spit Out The Bone, Murder One, Dream No More and Atlas Rise!. None of them were unlistenable. None were particularly memorable, either. Their thrash quotient was seriously lacking, IMO, and Lars’ drumming is terrible. The video for Atlas Rise! is a live-in-the-studio video and Lars loos like he’s struggling to deliver a fairly simple drum part. His snare hits on all songs are terrible, lacking snap. James Hatfield’s voice sounds great, except he’s still trying to give way too much melody (this was a problem with the lead guitar too, IMO). All songs are very mid-paced and yeah, Kirk Hammet’s lead work is pedestrian and terrible; there’s no hint of the crazed atonal soloing that typifies Slayer or Exodus (Gary Holt is still the best thrash guitarist around right now) or Testament.
The songs were better to listen to than a Phish concert, and if one of my non-metal friends put this on in their car, I wouldn’t complain, but it doesn’t inspire me to mosh or play air guitar or even sitting-in-the-car-headbanging.
I’m glad I gave it a chance, tho. My first post was dismissive without having heard the new material and that’s not fair to a band.
I think being young and hungry and having a bass player like Cliff Burton, who was a part of the creative force with a unique vision, is the key. Since Cliff died, their bass players have been very talented people but they were hired hands, not creative elements. The rapport they had with each other was never going to be the same as it was with the founding bassist, and I think in this bands case that matters a lot. Prolly not all of it, but I think it’s a big factor.
Plus, they were young and hungry. As soon as they weren’t hungry anymore, they just kind of fell into “doing what they do” mode. I think this happens a lot with artists.
Hmmmm. This has me thinking. It does seem easier for one person to glom onto “weird and ever-changing” as a label than for a band to do the same. I just woke up like 20 minutes ago, so lemme think about this a bit and see if I can come up with a few examples of bands that managed to navigate their career through the same kind of uncharted waters.
Beastie Boys. Songs on a single album could range from rap, psychedelic jams, hardcore punk ( both of which had them playing their own instruments), borderline novelty comedy songs, etc. They put out a whole album of lounge music with The Mix-Up. Even their rap changed, from minimalist beatbox rap to densely sampled to turntablist rap and back again. They were all over the map, usually on a single album (two of the finest albums ever made IMO are like this: Check Yer Head and Ill Communication).
I’m sure there are others, but some that come to mind I disqualified because they are really one person using a band name: The Cure, for instance.
The point is that, yes, some bands are able to change their sound and style successfully.
I think the album is growing on me the more I listen to it.
I can pick out subtle differences in songs and can hear the difference between Moth into the Flame and Revenge. They don’t sound that much alike, and I’m noticing, which solves the “all songs sound the same” problem for me.
Keep in mind too, I don’t know music literally at all. Other than “oh that sounds good to me” so I wouldn’t take my opinions with too much credit.
Hey man, if you like it, you like it. That’s the way music is. The fact that you’re training yourself to hear differences in the songs is awesome; it’s a skill that’ll translate to other artists and music in general just fine.
Used to be a huge Metallica fan up to the black album (yes, I liked it). Haven’t liked anything since. The new album is OK’ish. I’ve listened to it once and will probably give it one more try. My tastes have changed since I was 19 but I still do like the occasional listen to RtL or MoP.
Although frankly it’s all your fault anyway. I started a thread, like, 4 or 5 years ago asking for opinions on metal music and you gave me a shitload. From that I could discern different types of metal (It impresses oh so many people at work who ask "how can you listen to that stuff?!?) and it kinda just progressed from there.
