Sunday, January 11, 2009

BEST OF '08: METALLICA'S DEATH MAGNETIC

Metallica can't catch a break: even when they go back to heavy metal basics, as they did on Death Magnetic, fans find something to complain about - in this case, the complaint was that the album was mixed too loud, and that it was mastered for iPod earbuds, and not home or car stereo systems.

Still, this album was one of my favorites of '08. I think the band, and producer Rick Rubin, did a great job. I don't love all of James Hetfield's lyrics ("Love is a four letter word"?), I think they could have used a little more work, but musically, it's classic metal to the max. It's really Kirk Hammett's album in some ways, because there's so much lead guitar and so many great guitar solos. There weren't many solos on St. Anger. I'm hoping to see the band on tour, and I'll be excited to see them play a bunch of the new songs, which wasn't how I felt on the St. Anger tour.

By the way, you can watch both music videos from their album - "The Day That Never Comes" and "All Nightmare Long" (as well as all of their other music videos) at their official website, Metallica.com. Also, they've done an awesome cover of the early Iron Maiden classic, "Remember Tomorrow," for a Maiden tribute that came with an issue of Kerrang! magazine. I don't know how you find that, a friend burned a copy for me. I can't believe it's taken this long for Metallica to cover Maiden.

Metallica also have thier own edition of Guitar Hero coming out this year. It's a good time - again - to be a Metallica fan.

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