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).
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2 comments:
funny, i just happened to check Metallica.com and noticed that they had the single up there and was about to tell you about it. next thing i know you got a new, more pro and well-written blog. and yeah, the days of Metallica are nearing the end if it hasn't passed already. they need to throw Mike Patton in the mix or like trying doing mathcore/math metal or something.
-the Prawn
and apparently one of the new songs on the album is the unforgiven III.
a trilogy? seriously? the only songs as a trilogy that i can approve of would of been if smashing pumpkins ended up recording 66 and 99 to complement 33, but they never did and they never will.
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