Metallica "Death Magnetic" Album Review

Wednesday, September 24, 2008

Written by: Dee4leeds

After the mix matched production that was St. Anger, Metallica return with Death Magnetic. They claim to have a new found love of making music... but will it have any effect?



In the distance is a guitar. The riff? New... but reminiscent of Enter Sandman. The drums kick in whilst the guitars take a change of tone creating opening track That Was Just Your Life. The strong opening is continued by a clean middle but is unfortunately followed with an ending which seems to just peater out, which makes me question the rest of this album. Early yes, but the signs are there. However as a fan of metal and Metallica's sound I reserve creating an opinion from this song.

The track The End of the Line reinstates the faith in the album. Maybe Metallica should of chosen this song to open the album. Oh well, I guess they tried something different. The guitar has a full, rough riff which this reviewer likes. Thankfully the pace and skill is retained in Broken, Beat and Scarred. The song reminding me heavily of tracks from album such as Load and ReLoad.

If the opening three tracks have left you confused as to whether this album will be the next "Kill Em All" or if it's doomed to obscurity. Then be prepared to be confused further. The Day That Never Comes, with it's 8 minute runtime, varies wildly. The opening 4 minutes will bore many Metallica fans with slow pace, before exploding into a true Metallica song. The comparisons to One are very much needed. From the back end of The Day That Never Comes arrives All Nightmare Long. Matching The Day That Never Comes for length it's the sheer speed of All Nightmare Long which separates it from the rest of the album. Then it's time for Cyanide; bouncy was never something Metallica did well but here they prove themselves wrong.

The most anticipated track of Death Magnetic comes in the form of the Unforgiven III. The track has the heights of The Unforgiven II to overcome and whilst it does not exceed the Unforgiven II, it fully meets the scale set before hand. Next is The Judas Kiss a song so typical of Metallica it could appear on any album and fit in perfectly.

Suicide & Redemption as the penultimate track is not up to standard. This is the problem with Metallica, the scale is so high that had this song been produced by another metal band people would be hailing them as the next Metallica... Which leads to easily the final and best song on the album: My Apocalypse. Great riff, guitar solos, perfect drumming. Every part of Metallica is tuned up to tee in this, quite a way to leave the album. Destroy their brains at the end so the view of the entire album is skewed.



So, does this album return to the Metallica everyone knows and loves? Yes and no. The varying nature of these songs begs the question of need for full albums. Maybe the future of Metallica is mini-albums which can cut out on songs like Suicide & Redemption. This reviewers opinion is mixed.

Metallica - Death Magnetic: 3/5 - Too strong in places to mark it low, too weak in places to mark it high.

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Labels: Album Review, deaths, metal, music, music review, Review

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Article Posted: Wednesday, September 24, 2008 at 09:22.
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