Metallica - The Day That Never Comes

It's been a while since Metallica did anything particularly relevant, so many did not notice that today they released a stream of their new single "The Day that Never Comes" over at their website. Not that they don't have any fans; millions of ravenous metal heads slobber at the thought of Metallica returning to form after a decade of blues-rock or ill-conceived garage concepts. The strangest thing of all my be this new single, the first ever specifically written to be played in guitar hero.

Ok, so that may be a stretch, but the song format is less thrash from days of "...Justice..." or "Lightning" and more progressive, starting out slow and melodic with more than a touch of eighties hair ballad, before speeding up into some "Black Album" hard rock and crescendoing in dueling solos clearly influenced by Guitar Hero mainstays such as Dragonforce. Not that this is a bad thing; since "St. Anger" decided to forgo soloing in leu of more snare drum, devil-horn aficionados believed Metallica's days of shred were gone for good. It's nice to see they still have their chops. And oh, what chops!

So... yay for soloes, and maybe we'll have to look past iffy songwriting and contrived lyrics to get there. Ah, good ol' Metallica. Probably the biggest question mark other than soloes had been lead singer James Hetfield's voice, which has sounded shot for years now and really suffered on their last release and subsequent tours. Live clips showing early versions of songs on then new album, "Death Magnetic," only reinforced fears that the band was soon done. It seems that producer Rick Rubin may have noticed this too, because there seems to be liberal use of processing and perhaps more than a little autotune thrown on to keep Hetfield's voice in line. And once again, that isn't necessarily a bad thing. Unlike their past effort, the vocals don't make the songs intolerable, letting the prodigious shredding shine without distraction.

Death Magnetic comes out September 12 worldwide and on Guitar Hero (the intended audience).

Album Review: Scarlett Johansson 'Anywhere I Lay My Head' (2008)

I’ll be bold and go ahead and call it: set-up. If there is any pin-up girl to the hipster music critics it is Ms. Johansson. I wholeheartedly agree, she had some awesome performances in Ghost World, as well as Lost In Translation. When that fact is combined with the general agreement upon the validity of Wait’s catalog… now this starts to get suspicious.

I like to stick with a general rule with artists whose catalog I tend to occasionally indulge: They are either masked, dead, or just fucking insane. I’m not sure how I would react if someone I preemptively found attractive made a record.

That being said, I totally WANT to hate this album. I really do. They trick me with the chamber pop instrumental intro, and they second song she sounds like a man at first… but damn! It hits me on track 4... her vocals are irreverent and haunting. It’s a darker Fiona Apple… it’s what one would listen to driving across the country alone with a big open sky above, exploding with stars.

Not to give her all the credit, the arrangements are beautiful. The wall of sound is lush, and definitely compliments the low tone of her voice. Everything is balanced and where it should be. She hits her notes, and in my opinion, there is not an obvious use of pitch correction… so the girl has a vague understanding of music theory!

For what it is, it’s good. I can accept the novelty of it, and for whatever marketing reason behind it, it was well executed. My only regret in all of this was having my Last.Fm application open while analyzing it, further proof that I fell into the hype of my music elitist male counterparts.

* * In unrelated news: If anyone knows how to delete history on a Last.Fm account, please email me ASAP. * *