Review Summary: Jesus, that cover
Believe it or not, despite modern music being almost completely inundated by awful pop and junkie "rappers" with bad taste and "music", a Metallica record release is actually sort of a big deal still. Here we are, eight years after Death Magnetic, fresh off the election of an actual living meme to the Presidency, and we finally have a new Metallica studio album, titled
Hardwired... To Self-Destruct (ugh). A lot has changed in the last 8 years on a number of levels, and what have we learned in the interim? Well class, aside from Metallica taking far too long to write stuff, we've also learned that they really, really have a penchant for making hilariously awful decisions, not unlike the Democratic National Convention.
After the (overly) positive reviews and goodwill they got from DM, where could Metallica go from there? Well obviously, the band did the most logical thing in 2011 and
released a ***ing album with Lou Reed mumbling. Let's not any waste time on discussing that historically bad WTF moment in music, shall we? A quick apology in the form of a not-bad b-sides EP followed, then Metallica did the next most logical thing and created a music festival they couldn't afford. Whoops. Then they did the next, next most logical thing and released a 3D actual-plot-and-everything-movie, with a concert I guess? Why? So that did terribly and lost a lot of money and then I guess they got around to remembering that they write and release music for a living, so here's the fruits of THAT effort.
So let's just get this out the way - Spit Out The Bone is the best song Metallica has written since AJFA, straight up. It's pretty fast, James sounds incredible, it twists and turns like old days, and is musically the most interesting they've been in a long time. The song itself exists, tauntingly, almost just to remind you that yeah, Metallica will occasionally put in serious effort and still give you that *** YEAH when properly inspired - those dual leads hit you right in the feels. But first, you've got 11 other pretty lengthy tracks to get through that may not
quite give you the entertainment-to-length ratio it requires to get there... although I suppose you could skip them if you want to be a dick.
Generally though, Metallica have actually released a very Metallica album in 2016. If you're into that sort of thing you'll like it. If you don't like them at all, this album will not change that sentiment, and definitely won't save you from getting cut on that edge brah. You probably think The Beatles are overrated too. This is actually Very Good, so roughly a 3.4, and possibly one of the most 3.4 albums ever made. There's some really, really weak tracks in Confusion, Here Comes Revenge, Now That We're Dead, ManUNkind...
ManUNkind...
*** THIS I'm stopping this review for a second:
James/Lars, this is an intervention - there shall be no more puns. NONE! When you wrote The Thing That Should Not Be, THIS is what you meant. You're not clever or nuanced or deep, not even a little bit. You are middle-aged men with teenaged children. We let you get away with it on All Nightmare Long because it was legitimately the best thing you had done since George HW Bush was President, but this? Literally ManUNkind? You're hurting yourself and others. It needs to stop. And the sooner you stop, the sooner you can get better, and stop hurting those who love you...
...seriously, you can literally SEE Lars in his googly-eyed eureka moment "DUDE! What about... "Man-UN-Kind? (James drops his guitar in awe) "YEAHHH!" "It's fockin' so fockin' deep, yeah?!" High fives ensue... ok, sorry. So yeah, despite anybody justifiably expecting sonic diarrhea after Loutallica (Metalloureed?), you can breathe easy -
Hardwired is good, and arguably better than
Death Magnetic. The songs are more organic, looser, get to the point quicker, the riffs are better and a little bit more thought out, and the return of regular dual leads and harmonies really give it that old Metallica feel often. Trimming down some of the excess fat from the songs that plagued it's predecessor, Metallica combine the simple NWOBHM stylings of
Kill 'Em All extended riff outs and Dad Thrash of DM and the heavy plodding riff style of Black/Load-era, with solid, if slightly boring results. It's also slower in general than DM's semi-obvious midlife crisis of aping their complex fast stuff, but it's a good fit over that increasing paunch, and you can finally stop expecting another
Master of Puppets or
Ride The Lightning because really, are you ***ing serious? Lol.
Disc 1 is the strongest in general, with the title track and Moth Into Flame serving as kinda-nerfed-but-still-great throwbacks to the thrashier past, and along with Spit Out The Bone give the album a much-needed speed boost. Atlas Rise sounds not unlike AJFA-era Metallica with its shifting rhythms and showcasing a - gonna use it - Maidenesque bridge/solo section and infectious chorus that grows on you surprisingly fast. Dream No More is pretty forgettable, with terrible lyrics and boring Nickelbackian riffs that unfortunately remind you of that "other" album,
St. Anger only with good production. Halo On Fire has a cool doom-y main harmony riff, quiet Fade To Black-ish clean verses with and a loud, epic outro that closes out the disc quite satisfyingly. But then you get to Disc 2, which starts out promising with the satisfying mid-tempo jam Confusion... then you hit a wall of suck. You can pretty much skip the next four tracks and go straight to Spit Out The Bone and play that a couple times, you'll get a better time out of it than sitting through the other songs. They are either completely stock uninspired, bad or un-special in any way, interchangeably. And *** any song named ManUNkind, amirite?
The production and mix, while still not amazing, is much better than the pile of audio *** known as the mix of DM that even a ***ing video game did better. James sounds better than he's ever sounded and cranks out crunchy-ass Dad Riffz better than anyone to this day. Rob can be actually heard! Progress! Kirk even turns in some surprisingly great solos here and there. Lars is still only just competent enough to be kinda still bad but good enough, so whatever. The lyrics definitely suck - a lot, which if you've read anything James wrote past 2003, shouldn't surprise you at all - so if you can skip or get through some of the more boring sections, there's actually a lot to like about this record.
Overall I give a cautious thumbs-up to
HTSD. It's about the best they can pretty much do at this point at their age, and with their writing style irreparably corrupted by groove metal and assrock from the
Load era. Truthfully, almost any modern thrash band is probably doing better and more interesting stuff than them now, and Megadeth, Slayer and Testament all aged in much better shape and much more gracefully in general. But there's only one Metallica, and there's something... indefatigable about how this group of aging millionaire thrash dads still have the best mix of aggression, hooks and musical personality that the other guys
never could fully get. They're just as much an institution in rock music as Led Zeppelin or the Rolling Stones or the Beatles at this point, and
Hardwired To Self-Destruct proves that they've still got at least a little bit of gas in that tank, even if the engine is pretty ***ed.
It could be worse. You could be Hillary Clinton after election day, oh slam.
