Eh, the live song I heard that is allegedly going to be on their next album had a lot of soloing in it, and it wasn't nearly this bad. It was about the same level as the solos on their early stuff, a lot better than anything else he's done since the black album and maybe even AJFA. Obviously nothing satriani level or anything, but not really anything to be embarrassed about unless you're trying to be mr. technical man. The song wasn't that terrible either, it was like st. anger the less boring version with a bunch of actual old school metallica bits. If the album ends up sounding like that it will at least be a big step in the right direction