METALLICA
"Death Magnetic" CD
Warner Music Group


Ok, let's get something straight.

What follows should not be misconstrued as review of the new Metallica album entitled "Death Magnetic". What I've written is more of an admittedly biased history lesson. There are plenty of reviews out there, and Amazon.com is already selling discarded copies of this CD for 6 bucks. So, if you wanna know what it sounds like... go someplace else.

In listening to this album, I became acutely aware that I was in a strange place from which to review it. I had to keep asking myself, "How would I feel about this material if the band wasn't Metallica"? I was actually looking for ways to justify the complete lackluster performances contained on this; the much awaited follow up to 2003's "St. Anal"...sorry, "St. Anger" album.Would I be as unimpressed if this had a different band's name on it? I came to the conclusion that with music this generic, uninspired, and just plain lazy....my review would still be the same regardless of whose moniker was on the CD cover. And that is when I realized the music doesn't matter this time. You've all heard it before, I promise you. I think reviewing the music would take more energy and effort than the band used in writing it, so I'm not gonna waste my limited typing skills on that front.The awful truth is that as sad as it is to say; this crap IS Metallica... or what is left of it's swollen, bloated, corporate corpse. I cannot just review the material using the same standards as if they were a new band. They are not. They were (once upon a time) THE standard by which metal was defined. Metallica has a lot to live up to, and with their latest offering, "Death Magnetic" they prove yet again that they are not up to the task.

Perhaps a bit of back story is in order.

To say that I am not a Metallica fan is probably an understatement of epic proportions. My pride in not having added a dime to their bank accounts since 1988 is the stuff of local legend. But, this was not always the case.
I loved Metallica. Let me say that again, I LOVED METALLICA.

When I was a teen, cheezy hard rock cliches dominated radio. When hair metal acts like POISON,WINGER, and WARRANT were what passed for metal in most people's minds, Metallica came in and destroyed walls, drawing strength from underground sources, and unified the extreme metal and punk scene for the first time ever. Before that, the closest you'd see to punk at a metal show were VENOM or MOTORHEAD shirts. I know that seems hard to believe in this era where so much music crosses over into each other. But that was NOT the case before the "Mighty 4": METALLICA, ANTHRAX, MEGADETH, and SLAYER changed the rules on a worldwide scale. And this all happened in my generation, I watched it happen first hand, and it was so exciting. Far and above the rest were Metallica, who truly felt like a God-given gift that NO ONE had heard before....brilliant lyrics that didn't revolve around girls,parties,booze and other tired rock drivel.... amazing,complex songwriting arrangements that showcased expert musicianship mixed with the speed and intensity of hardcore & punk rock. Metallica were the smart alternative to the awful crap jocks would blare at drunken keggers whilst wrestling around in a testosterone infused soup of sweat and beer.

Can you imagine my horror when Metallica BECAME that same crowd's soundtrack a few years later?

And yes, it IS the band's fault for dumbing down their music to more "accessible" levels, thus welcoming the American retard into their fan base. What began with 1988's self-indulgent "And Justice For All" LP, and the cheezeball video for the destined-to-be-Karaoke standard "One", was finalized with the epic piece of shit that is "The Black Album" in 1990 when Metallica enlisted platinum album selling producer Bob Rock ( MOTLEY CRUE, BON JOVI....ugh) to help drive coffin nails into what was left of the band's integrity. The rest is history.
Back to 2008.

"Death Magnetic" is awful. It's boring, and full of self-glamorizing nonsense that passes for songwriting. To date, this band has never released as tired and hackneyed a record as this. Weak vocals,weak riffs,boooooring drumming,and all of it treading very heavily on material they played more honestly a decade ago.I expect artists who were capable of brilliant, original work (Metallica set standards that did in fact challenge the accepted parameters of hard music on a global scale ) to perform at a level beyond resting on past glories. I don't swear blind allegiance to ANY artist if they put out shit time & time again.Sadly, that is all I see in their fan base now, adults in denial ("Metallica still Kick Ass! Whoooo!") or kids who just don't know any better (Metallica ROCK as hard as Korn! Wahooooo!") All I see are throngs of devoted Metallica "Apologists" who've become so accustomed to this bands abuse of fans, the drug-fueled tantrums with each other, their colossal gaps of time between actual work only to follow up with some crappy, thrown together mess that once again is "getting back" to their roots...or at least that is how it will be sold by the publicity machine to a public that keeps buying into it. If I were a fan, I'd be so angry at being so blatantly taken for granted, that I'd NOT just be grateful for whatever scraps they tossed my way after 5 year intervals. I'd have walked away.

Wait, I did walk away.

I'm sure you've all heard the hype...again. "Wow, they have gone back to being heavy"..or whatever wetting of their pants every clueless fanboy will blather on about. It is a sad day when a seminal band such as this is stealing riffs from latter-day acts like QUEENS OF THE STONE AGE, and RAGE AGAINST THE MACHINE. Worse than that; they steal from themselves; only the crappy "Load" era stuff seems the favorite theft-able pablum/song-filler this time. ( did we really need an "Unforgiven 3" ? sigh...) . I for one, refuse to suck them off for managing to get off the sofa long enough to play stolen riffs from their back catalog with about 1/20th the enthusiasm they once possessed. Not even the mighty Rick Rubin (Johnny Cash, Slayer, Beastie Boys) in the producer's chair could save them from themselves.

This is music for simpletons; yet again.

0 out of 5

MARS

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