The old Metallica is back?

[dan weapon]

Let's start taking bets on whether every one of Kirk's solos are just stock Hammett minor pentatonic licks with a wah pedal to cover up the lack of invention.

Up to and including the black album I always thought he WROTE decent, catchy solos - and although not ridiculously technical shred, they definitely complimented the songs and had direction. Even load and reload had a few good leads that worked with the songs.

But for the last 10 years, he's butchered his own solos live; just sticking on the wah pedal, missing out the difficult bits and widdling away with improvised old licks. Heard their live version of blackened on the Some Kind of Monster E.P.? Fucking hell...

 

[Nebulous]

Agreed. I actually think his best solos were on "Black". As you say, they weren't overly technical, but suited the mood of the songs well and had some decent direction to them.

 

[Andy Sneap]

Am I the only person that actually likes the way Lars plays? I actually think hes good because hes the whole groove to metallica. OK, he may not be the flashiest player but at least he's on the backbeat. I was chatting to an inside person the otherday who been down to their studio and listened in, said it was sounding very old school but like all you guys say, that hungers got to be there, and lets face it, if we'd sold 100 million albums, the whole concept of life is going to seem a tad different, nevermind that thing called down picking.

 

[kev]

Hmm, definitely still got that lack of hunger vibe Still looking forward to it though

 

[jhrv]

Well, it sounds good to me.

 

[theBlackLOBSTERmurder]

they should stop talking so much bull, stop making studio videos and therapy lessons and what not and just drink a few beers, write new songs and record that shit. THAT would be authentic!

 

[smy1]

Am I the only person that actually likes the way Lars plays? I actually think hes good because hes the whole groove to metallica. OK, he may not be the flashiest player but at least he's on the backbeat. I was chatting to an inside person the otherday who been down to their studio and listened in, said it was sounding very old school but like all you guys say, that hungers got to be there, and lets face it, if we'd sold 100 million albums, the whole concept of life is going to seem a tad different, nevermind that thing called down picking.

I agree with you on Lars' playing. Altho he was very sloppy live in the 90s. I didn't see them live this century so I can't comment on if he's tighter now ...

I do also agree with the "they should make Load-style albums" comment above. Anything else to me would sound weird. Maybe black album heaviness. Hetfield's voice was never aggressive, but it's less aggressive these days and it'll be interesting to see what they come up with. I am not expecting much, though.

 

[dan weapon]

Am I the only person that actually likes the way Lars plays? I actually think hes good because hes the whole groove to metallica. OK, he may not be the flashiest player but at least he's on the backbeat.

Not at all. I really enjoy lars' playing, especially his fills on Justice and the Black album - because like Kirk, he actually played for the SONGS. Has any metal band ever written such consistantly great songs as Metallica did from Lightning through to the black album?! I guess that's subjective...

I just hate to see them try to recreate the 'old' metallica if they are not actually the metallica they used to be. If nu-metal was still popular and they decided to go back to 'old' metallica then that would be cool... But nowadays, with the Triviums and BFMValentines of this world being far more popular than the de-tuned guitars and solo-less bands of the late 90's/early 2000s, Metallica's sudden change to be the old Metallica again (i.e. the one that inspired the current crop of popular metal bands) seems a tad convenient.


Machine Head, Testament and Megadeth have all managed to come back on form with pretty much "good old days" albums that in years to come will sit comfortably next to their respective classic albums... I'd love to say the same about Metallica.

 

[Nebulous]

Am I the only person that actually likes the way Lars plays? I actually think hes good because hes the whole groove to metallica. OK, he may not be the flashiest player but at least he's on the backbeat.

That's one thing I like about watching the Black album docos. Alot of people have the opinion that "he can't play for shit" but the playing, recording, editing, etc that got the final result on that album made for a really cool vibe to the drums. They pushed and pulled at the right times and really fed the songs that were written on that album.

 

[kaomao]

Lars has always been the groovy part of metallica, just listen to what he plays on One, very variegated style !
Yes he's been sloppy years ago, but he's doing pretty well these days!
The biggest problem now is Kirk, I think he wrote the best leads in metal history just because I can clearly remember every goddamn note has been playing on the old stuff.
Too many play and played a billions notes with no melody no soul.
Right now for him is just a minor pentatonic with wah all the time lol.

 

[HatewerK]

From what I've read on Blabbermouth and such some time ago, Rick Rubin brought back the E tuning in Metallica so that Jaymz's vocal style could fit better, and in my opinion he's got a good point in doing this, but time will tell.

as for the videos, in the second song at one point there's a stop that seems "sampled" by the start of Master of Puppets, same guitar tone, did you notice it? That alone was enough to get my attention from now on... And btw, the guitar sound that the engineer plays back for James is insanely good, no more farts-on-an-unwaxed-pickup-miked-with-a-soundblaster-mic-pumped-through-some-broken-boutique-amp-and-then-some guitar tone...

 

[FIXXXER]

envy is a capital sin isn't it?

i love MOP, LOAD and i also love ANGER
it's just fucking metallica, it does not sound like
X or Y it sounds like metallica all the way.
metallica has/is it's own genre, why don't you guys get it?

S.

 

[dan weapon]

envy is a capital sin isn't it?

i love MOP, LOAD and i also love ANGER
it's just fucking metallica, it does not sound like
X or Y it sounds like metallica all the way.
metallica has/is it's own genre, why don't you guys get it?

S.

What? We're not allowed to have a different opinion than you on Metallica?

Here’s what I don’t "get" about St Anger:

The songs were far too long and repetitive
The riffs were dull and uninspired
The lyrics were rubbish
There was no guitar harmonies or solos, and no point in Kirk being in the band
The production was pretty crap
The snare sounds like a biscuit tin
James’ vocal range doesn’t suit the newer lower tuning.

I could go on…

I’ve been collecting Metallica CDs/vinyl/videos etc since buying Kill Em All on cassette in 1994 and own EVERY CD single they’ve released from ‘One’ onwards (more than 40 of them if you include pt 1, 2 and 3s) singles, as well as heaps of rare vinyl such as the original Whiplash/Jump in the fire/eye of the beholder Live Shit box set etc. I love pretty much all their musical output, but that doesn’t mean I have to think St Anger and the way they’re heading these days is musical gold.

 

[nwright]

Of the very little bit of material you could hear on the vid, I liked it. As others have said, the vocals sound a little uninspired, but I can live with it. The tones sound pretty cool.

I'm not a huge Metallica fanboy, but I am a fan of RTL up through the Black album (yes, I liked the Black album). On the S&M CD and video, I thought James sounded great on the older stuff, and was ferocious on Sad But True. That wasn't too long ago, so maybe he can find that fire again?

 

[Coprosatanica]

My favorite part of the video is James talking about the "RIFF VEST".

 

[FIXXXER]

What? We're not allowed to have a different opinion than you on Metallica?

Here’s what I don’t "get" about St Anger:

The songs were far too long and repetitive
The riffs were dull and uninspired
The lyrics were rubbish
There was no guitar harmonies or solos, and no point in Kirk being in the band
The production was pretty crap
The snare sounds like a biscuit tin
James’ vocal range doesn’t suit the newer lower tuning.

I could go on…

the problem ist that most of the posts are
not about real criticism/different opinions on metallica,
it's more about saying something like: (with the voice of peter griffin)

"metallica had no solo stuff on anger so it is...crap"

that's just stupid, sorry.

S.

 

[Andy Sneap]

i think what they are saying is St Anger had a lack of songs

 

[jhrv]

i would like to see Andy working with Metallica.

 

[Metaltastic]

Honestly, I started listening to Metallica in 8th grade (2000-2001) coming off the nu-metal thing and having just started playing guitar. They were my favorite band back then, but by the beginning of sophmore year in HS, I had discovered so much more music that just blew it out of the water (at that point I was just getting addicted to In Flames, for example) that I think of them as just such a dull band, even the older stuff. But then again, I find most thrash, especially from the 80s, to be really immature and boring sounding anyway (with a few exceptions, of course). I guess what I'm saying is that Metallica will always be the "just getting into metal when you don't know any better" band to me, and now that I've grown out of them long ago, I really couldn't care less what they do, and neither should all of you people arguing.

 

[FIXXXER]

i think what they are saying is St Anger had a lack of songs

i think the problem ist that the expectations on
metallica are just put so incredibly high, because it's
METALLICA, it's the guys who made RTL, MOP, JUSTICE etc.
imagine every metallica CD would be like MOP, would it be "better" than it is now? IMHO NO! then, especially for me metallica would be "just one another metal band" on most other bands i can't see any process, for me THIS means that there is no creativity going on, for most other people "having no solos on a cd" means no creativity. who's right now!?

S.