Lunchtime Music feat. Metallica

The new album - Death Magnetic - comes out tomorrow and, I must admit, I'm pretty curious how the remainder of the tracks on the new LP are going to sound.

The first single - getting airtime virtually non-stop in my little radio market in Western Kentucky - seems to be an amalgam of several elements from previous Metallica albums.




The energy and speed of Kill 'Em All hasn't been around for years. The dark, almost malevolent, spirit of Ride The Lightning might be in there somewhere. The flow of the song, the changes and the almost proto-typical "thrash-metal-breakdown" half-way through smacks just a little of And Justice For All.

The top-40-over-produced drivel ( a la Bob Rock ) is gone, thankfully. But, this most certainly isn't Master of Puppets either. All that is left is a striped-down, raw style - you can really tell that in Lars' drum track.

The most notable change in Metallica over the last 10 or so years has bee James Hetfield's lyrics. His prose seems to have lost a lot of its power, though the delivery is still there. But, this is only a judgement from the first track that has been released.

I'm not going to by the album tomorrow, I'm going to just "find" a copy and listen to it.