Are The Boys Back? (Death Magnetic Review)

5 years ago Metallica released the aural abortion that was St.Anger. The album was harsh and uncompromising. You had to respect it for what it was, a statement of the troubles the band had gone through over the preceding 20 or so years. But did you have to like it? No, and that’s a big no. Many people thought that was the end of the band after a less than stellar series of releases in the nineties. So now with their new release, the awfully titled "Death Magnetic", many of Metallica's hardcore fans and the band themselves have said that this album marks a return to old school Metallica, a veritable U-turn away from St.Anger and straight back to the long and epic songs structures that defined them in the eighties. Well this is partly true. The songs are indeed long. The shortest clocking in at 5 minutes and the longest at just under 10. The problem is though the songs are missing something. There is no epicness in them as such. There are no songs that grab you and take you some place like "Master of Puppets" or "And Justice for All".

The songs are full of riff after relentless riff but they seem almost disjointed. It's as if the band decided to throw in every riff they could think of. On the other hand this makes it a very interesting listening experience. On first hearing the opening track, "That Was Just Your Life" I thought to myself, "The boys are back!", and on the first few listens this is the overall feeling one gets from the album. Songs like "Broken, Beat and Scarred", "All Nightmare Long", "The Judas Kiss" and the band's new single "The Day That Never Comes" all have that classic metal formula but they fall painfully short of the epic proportions that they are trying to reach for. The song that fails the most in this respect is "The Unforgiven 3". Even with the strings and piano accompaniments in the track the song goes nowhere fast. The instrumental track "Suicide and Redemption" is a worthy try at past glories but it pales in comparison to the likes of "Orion" and "To Live Is To Die".

To these ears there were 2 particular major shortcomings on the album. First among them are Kirk Hammett's solo's. There is no style or form to the majority of his solos. He just lets rip. Sometimes it works. Sometimes not and this time, it doesn't. The man sounds like Kerry King on a bad day. Secondly Mr. Ulrich's snare is ridiculously loud in the mix which makes you wonder was Rick Rubin anywhere to be seen during the mixing of the album. If so I hope he receives a substantial cut in his pay cheque.

All in all this is a solid release from Metallica. It shows that they still have the energy to put out a more than decent metal album and that James Hetfield still has some of that infamous growl of the early nineties left in his now middle aged voice. The boys are indeed back but they still have a distance to go.

5.5/10