metallica

Metallica is a band with a long and storied history, a history I know nothing about. Reviewing their ninth release, Death Magnetic, without any background knowledge of their previous albums provides the rare opportunity to listen to something by an industry giant with a completely open mind.

That said, Death Magnetic is a capable metal album filled with impressive fretwork and frenetic structuring, held back by an exorbitant runtime (10 songs, 75 minutes... shudder) and ham-fisted lyrics.

It is often the case with albums of such daunting length that there will be seriously great music buried among excess and frills; this record is no different. "The Day That Never Comes" is a standout, characterized by a brooding intro that gives way to vocalist James Hetfield's ferocious wail, coupled with rock-solid guitar. The last three minutes devolve into an engaging shred-fest, which works better than it does in most of the other songs.

Every track has at least one of these frenzied sections, where the guitar goes wild and the drums turn into assault rifles. This can be engaging, most notably on the ten-minute instrumental "Suicide & Redemption," due to the sheer ability of guitarist Kirk Hammett and drummer Lars Ulrich. However, these segments frequently have the effect of turning songs into scattershot affairs that lack cohesion or focus, such as "That Was Just Your Life" and "Broken, Beat & Scarred," a problem that possibly could have been solved with a little trimming in the studio.

Although most of the focus is on instrumental pyrotechnics, Hetfield frequently takes center stage, with both positive and negative results. His voice is powerful and his manner of singing fits the thrashing perfectly, but the lyrics themselves are unimpressive.

Throughout Death Magnetic, Hetfield's words are pitifully melodramatic, consisting of morbid rhymes that rarely inspire or even depress. Instead, they elicit boredom and the occasional laugh, an unfortunate quality for an otherwise skillful album that manages to entertain even when it fails.