- Label
- Mercury Records
- Release date
- 12th September 2008
- Genre
- Heavy metal/thrash
- Buy this album
- Order CD
Metal giants abandon navel-gazing and rediscover pathological intensity
Five years ago, Metallica's much-derided St Anger album saw the metal goliaths second-guess and over-analyse themselves to the point of creative paralysis. When the entire sorry process, incorporating group therapy sessions and acres of self-pitying psychobabble, was displayed in the jaw-droppingly Spinal Tap-esque documentary Some Kind of Monster, it appeared the only possible future for the band would involve relentless mockery
Enter Rick Rubin, the Red Adair of the production world and the man who previously salvaged the careers of Johnny Cash and Neil Diamond, and re-enter Metallica. Death Magnetic sees Metallica revert to their basics – although such a phrase seems horribly inappropriate – of multilayered, serpentine guitar riffs, skin-flaying solos and homicidal drums hurled at the listener with pathological intensity.
Whether you find James Hetfield growling sociopathic dirges such as Suicide & Redemption or My Apocalypse profound or preposterous, it's impossible not to thrill at the sheer brutality of their visceral assault. Metallica are back to doing what they do best, and are all the better for it.
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