Trust me, Metallica has pissed me off plenty through the years, and never so much as they did with the utterly pathetic album “St. Anger,” which I shelled out the cash to buy as soon as it came out. Me, I suppose I’m one of the very, very few Metallica fans who bought their first stuff, loved it, and then continued to buy their music straight on through the “pop” phase, too (i.e. The Black Album). And though they seem to be a bunch of whiners, especially during the Napster debacle, I have continuously loved their music. When Load came out, I bought it almost as an afterthought, thinking by that time that they’d surely be washed up, but no, Load became one of my favorite Metallica albums of all time. I liked it a lot better than ReLoad, but then even ReLoad had some postives. The only album they’ve done that I didn’t go right out and buy was the one with all the cover tunes on it. I don’t do cover tune albums, even when it’s Metallica that does them.
But then came St. Anger, and this time my suspicions were realized, just a few years later than I thought, post-Load, you might say. St. Anger was just washed up garbage. Hetfield sounded like he was trying way too hard to sound like the younger bands who are now imitating Metallica. Just garbage. The pom sound Ulrich’s snare drum made just made me cringe every time he hit it. But I bought it, and I guess in some way I knew then that if they ever made another album I’d buy it, too; because they’ve got a history of greatness behind them. It would take more than one crappy album to break me from Metallica.
Enter Death Magnetic. Today is a great day. I got the new Metallica, popped it in and cranked it up and now I am truly happy. My Metallica, the music I have loved for…God, over 20 years now, has made an album not only worth making, but it sounds like they’ve jumped right back into the style of Justice and Ride the Lightning, the style that turned my head in the first place. The first track got my heart thumping and I was hooked, from that moment on. Back to the grand old frantic, punishing, riff-style hammerhead metal that made Metallica Metallica. These songs aren’t 3:23 in duration, these songs blister you for 7 minutes plus. And what do you know, they rip your head off without doing a cheese-ass Cookie Monster voice.
Here’s the best measuring stick, I guess; Amazon customer reviews. This is the customer review for St. Anger, which I would have rated 1 star (or worse, if I could get away with it).
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And here’s the same measuring stick for Death Magnetic, which at this point I would give, yes, 5 stars:
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