Sep. 10, 2008 - Issue #673: Sex in the City 2008
New Sounds - Metallica
Death Magnetic
(Warner)
The beating of a heart—a sound effect that has been stale for at least a couple of decades already—opens up Metallica’s Death Magnetic, the album that optimists would love to hail as the band’s return to form, having jettisoned Bob Rock as producer in favour of Rick Rubin, the man often credited with powers of ressurection when it comes to the old guard of the music industry.
No, this is not the album where Metallica returns to its former self—that’s quite simply an impossible task, considering that three of the band members are more than two decades older than they were during the band’s rise to the top of the thrash heap during the days of old, while the fourth member was off doing his own thing in other groups long before he hooked up with Metallica.
That’s not necessarily a bad thing, though. There’s something disconcerting about a bunch of guys in their 40s trying to recapture their youth, and, thankfully, that’s not what happens on Death Magnetic, even if the aggression found here does recall the band’s earlier days.
Once the band gets past that initial beating heart, the music steps up, occasionally stumbling, but more often than not writhing like a beast that’s been woken from a long slumber.
The opener, “That Was Just Your Life,” is a good indication of what’s happening on this album, with guitars starting and stopping, slowing and then rushing ahead at full charge, Hetfield’s voice pulled back in the mix rather than being thrust up front as it was during the more radio-friendly production of the Rock years. That’s the way it should be, too; this is brutal music, meant to be uncomfortable and angry, and Hetfield’s growl is more of a hammer-like tool than a delicate instrument—part of the music’s thunder rather than the bringer of the all-too-important sing-a-long chorus.
Hetfield’s lyrics are still a bit clunky when you read them on the page, but they’ve always been more about the idea and the delivery than poetics, anyway, so there’s little point in dissecting them apart from the music and wondering if he could have done better.
One significant improvement here, though, is the role of guitarist Kirk Hammett. Last time out, on St Anger, Hammett was shut out in the guitar solo department, but that’s not the case on Death Magnetic, where he lays waste to song after song with furious and elastic flurries of notes, conjuring up melodies out of the pounding rhythms.
While there’s some repetition in the characteristics of the riffing, the band keeps the sound varied and interesting throughout the record, covering slower, ballad-like—or at least as ballad-like as Metallica should ever get—material on “The Day That Never Comes,” and, well, just plain killer riffing on “The Judas Kiss.”
The effort on this album is clear, and Metallica, if not quite back in top form, is at least putting some serious effort into working out problems in its music instead of on the movie screen with a sleazy therapist in tow. V
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