Metallica-Death Magnetic Review

After more than 15 years of personal problems, musical bankruptcy, substance abuse and some mediocre to below average studio albums to their credit...hold on...umm..err...well....Metallica are back!

Read on my fellow metalheads :)
Clocking in at a mammoth 75 minutes, this album's structure is quite reminiscent of the masterful And Justice for All. Album opener That Was Just Your Life starts with a hearbeat (literally) and pretty soon you get the message. Metallica make it loud and clear....'We are back to thrashing boys, and we mean it'. When Kirk's solo hits around the 5 minute mark, you realize how vital it is to the "Metallica" sound and only a fool would have thought of a Metallica album without solos, a fool the world knows as Bob Rock. This one's a great thrasher to start off the album with.

Next up is The End of The Line, a technical thrasher with some epic soling from Kirk. Following this one comes Broken,Beat and Scarred which is an out and out balls to the walls headbanger. The three glorious thrashers pave way for lead single The Day That Never Comes, which slows the tempo for the first time. It's a semi ballad of sorts and home to some excuisite guitar work. This is one of those songs which grow on you after repeated listens.
Next up is my favourite song off the album, All Nightmare Long. Hold on to your socks for this one fellas, this is Metallica at what they f'in do best. Hyper speed shredding, immaculate soloing...one hell of an exciting nightmare this is. A mosher of moshers from the lords of mosh themselves.
Cyanide keeps things rocking and rolling at a medium pace and could very well have been on the Load/Reload albums. we're not complaining though, coz we're still under the spell of the preceeding thrashers, and a little variety never hurts.
The Unforgiven III follows Cyanide, a slow, piano infested ballad which might very well be the lowest point of the whole album. And even if the song was any good, there's this one thing you realize...Metallica have, and will always do what they want. So you can just shove whatever true metal crap that's in your head and deal with it. It's criminal to ignore Metallica for the mere hatred of one or two songs or your own stupid ass beliefs.
The Judas Kiss sounds more like a heavy rock n' roll jam session with a decent solo. Just when you start to think the downward spiral will continue, Metallica ramp up their game again with Suicide and Redemption, a moody, atmospheric instrumental which tries to recreate the glory of The Call of Ktulu and Orion, it doesn't quite, but it's a good song nonetheless and features some great twin guitar work by James and Kirk.
A riff infested monster thrasher called My Apocalypse brings things to end on a very very high note.
So, that was Death Magnetic for you. Let me say though, except for a couple of songs, this is not really the Metallica of the eighties. As much as this album reminds you of And Justice..., Master.., or Ride The Lighting..it reminds you of Load, Reload and St. Anger as well. It's still music from a band that is trying to get back in form, to get back to its roots, to get back to whatever it was that made this band the biggest metal band ever. We also need to understand that you just cannot expect a band to keep churning out the same stuff over and over again. They are creative people, they'll go insane if they do not progress. What's good about this album is that the Metal in Metal-lica seems to back, well, for the most part...and that in itself is a great deal. All Nightmare Long in itself is evidence enough that all hope is not lost. Yes, there are some things which might annoy some people..e.g. James' emo like singing in some songs, southern rock influences in some songs a la Load etc etc, but there's still enough material here to bang your head to and shout out loud. Death Magnetic is clearly not another Master...,And Justice.. or Ride The Lightning. It may not even be as punchy as The Black album, but it is clearly heads and shoulders above anything they have done in the past decade and a half, and miles ahead of most crap masquerading as metal these days.
EDIT: After repeated listens I have changed my mind, Suicide and Redemption may!! actually reach the status of Orion or ..Ktulu...the song absolutely rocks!!! Man!...what musicianship...absolutely mindblowing.

Rating: 8.5/10