Yahoo! Music Album Review

Released on 15/09/08
Label: Universal

It's been a pretty miserable decade for Metallica, whose last few albums have limped out to steadily decreasing returns. In between warring with their fans over the Napster 'issue' and undergoing rehab and group analysis, their finest hour was the unintentionally hilarious "Some Kind Of Monster" film through which we all learned to loathe Lars Ulrich. The Rick Rubin-produced "Death Magnetic", their follow-up to 2003 career lowlight, "St. Anger", has much riding on its claims to be a return to the hunger of youth. The glory of thrash, of course, was its brash adolescent thrill, its own gleeful surprise at the sight of all its mayhem. But post-analysis, post-court case and post-soul-searching documentary, it's hard to believe that there's much adolescence left in Metallica.

For the most part, "Death Magnetic" gives the sense of the band imitating their younger selves but not quite pulling it off. Rubin's production is matter of fact and fixes the notable absence of bass on their classic albums (just another victim of James Hetfield and Lars' egos). Their playing is faultless, Kirk Hammett in particular astonishes throughout, and there's that fantastic chunkiness that you want from Metallica inscribed everywhere. On tracks like monumental album closer, "My Apocalypse", you almost believe they want it like they did back when they cranked out "Whiplash". And we're in familiar lyrical territory of course: death, largely. He may be a sober family man but Hetfield's thematic concerns still make "The Seventh Seal" read like a whimsical family comedy.

So if all the formulas are being applied why doesn't it quite seem to gel? For one thing, new bassist Robert Trujillo brings an unwelcome groove to proceedings that tends to blunt the taught, choppy control at the heart of the band's dynamic. They're not short of ideas but they struggle to settle on the best ones. In "Some Kind Of Monster" you could see them constantly chasing riffs but never pinning them down and the same is true here; no sooner have they locked into something than they're unravelling it and trying out something else. (It's worth bearing in mind that all the best metal riffs should be instantly recognisable when performed by Beavis & Butthead.) The ego this time manifests itself in the length of the songs, most hovering around the seven or eight-minute mark - the impressive but interminable instrumental, "Suicide & Redemption" goes on for 10.

In the final analysis, "Death Magnetic" at least proves that 40-something millionaires can make a valiant fist of recapturing the fury of youth. Sadly, though, it seems that Metallica will never be 20-years-old again.

    by James Poletti