1st Post: Metallica - Death Magnetic Review

I’m going to re-commence blogging with a bang – by reviewing Metallica’s 9th studio album, Death Magnetic. And no, I’ve never written an album review before, so don’t expect what you expect.
What a way to give oneself a swift, brutal kick in the behind to start blogging (er…I mean writing). After a five year hiatus from active, self-motivated composition (excluding school assignments and freelance work), I came to realize that, as a humanities academic-in-training, there would be no clear demarcation of working hours and non-working hours; whenever the mass of grey matter in your cranium cogitates (er…I mean thinks), you are working. So that lines out sleep as the only time I am relieved (deprived?) of work. Psychoanalysts and neurologists may argue otherwise, but I’d like to deceive myself into believing that I can actually get some rest while dozing. So what happens when all the flying circuits just disperse like an ADIDAS daydream (fans of Korn know what this is about)? The voltage is wasted, unless it’s recorded. Again, some may say those thoughts hibernate, but this isn’t where my logic plans to go. Therefore, in order to grasp whatever currents preoccupy the dome now, hitting the keys seems like a decent idea, though this falls into the trap of actually doing MORE work after thinking.

Before the bang is diluted to little more than a beep, let’s put that pseudo-metaphysical justification for my holier-than-thou (no pun intended, it’s a pretty darn far one) writing motives to rest. Metallica needs no introduction. Either you’ve been living in the Qing dynasty, or you’re actually an Australopithecus…this is how many metal reviewers usually start, by disparaging those who have little knowledge about the subject of their attention. How metal-centric! They have obviously little concern for the individual who is inured by the extreme amounts of information in our day and age, nor for the fellow human deprived of informational access. Those who are reading this and have no clue about who Metallica are, press the back key on the browser to read something else, or look them up on Wikipedia. It’s that simple.
In short, middle-aged Metallica has released the long-awaited follow-up album to the controversial St. Anger (2003). First and final impressions: it’s good. It’s highly entertaining, worth listening, and GASP! Worth writing a few pages over. A lukewarm fan of Metallica at best, I do not know their repertoire by heart, but I am familiar with some of their discs, namely Master of Puppets, …And Justice For All, the Black Album and Reload. I feel quite endeared to all except Reload, but it ultimately was Death Magnetic that prompted me to write. At another period which I feel my intellectual and musical predilections shifting, this album made me raise many questions concerning the genre that has been my love for nearly a decade, Metal. I am beginning to envy metalheads who can bob to every new song by any new band who churns out a decent riff; I was like that circa 2004. It is insanely difficult to get my head banging nowadays; the last time I felt that pleasant urge to break one’s own neck was when I discovered Maximum the Hormone. Many of you should’ve noticed by now, this “review” is more like a deconstruction of my current relationship with metal, with Death Magnetic as the hammer and sickle. Blazing through Death Magnetic, there were a few moments when that euphoria returned – namely in the tracks “The End of the Line”, “Broken, Beat & Scarred” and “All Nightmare Long”. Any fears of getting a “St. Anger Pt.II” are quelled, this is Metallica picking up some old tempo-shifting tricks, infusing some bluesy riff-age from the Load-Reload era and synthesized through massive grooves that actually worked in St. Anger. Kirk Hammet’s blazing guitar solos return, thought not as flashy or impeccably precise as 1986’ Hammet, flavor and experience takes the main stage here. In terms of form, the album is the crystallization of all Metallica has endeavored in the past. Whether it is more or less sonically pleasing compared to their classics is a subjective matter.

Despite all its glory and excitement, after repeated listening, I discovered a simultaneously extant undercurrent of senility. What is first readily noticeable, is a heavy reliance on the abrupt section changes and Lars Ulrich’s jagged drumming style. These were signatures in Metallica’s songwriting back in the 80’s, producing choppy, punchy riffs and verses. But rehashed in 2008, it sounds repetitive and redundant; take the intro to “All Nightmare Long” for instance – thankfully a good verse riff appears to save the day. They can pull this off only because they are Metallica; they’ve done this countless times in the past that it became part of their style – any other band attempting this without a reputation for being experimental would likely get lambasted for “bad writing”. Another streak of tiredness is evident from the gradual dispersion of interesting songwriting starting on perhaps one of the worst tracks, “The Unforgiven III”, dragging all the way through “The Judas Kiss”, a track with an awkward verse that doesn’t work well; the all-instrumental “Suicide & Redemption” that listens like a dirtier, tank-top wearing older sibling of “Orion”; to a boring finale, “My Apocalypse” which is supported by a sub-par, flaccid riff.

Let’s move on to another department, the singing. James Hetfield’s confrontational, clearly-barked vocals greatly contrast the unintelligible screaming in New Wave of American Heavy Metal groups; it actually behooves you to pay attention to the lyrics. Which forms the last nail in the coffin for me: the lyrical content is hardly any different from the Metallica of old. And it’s not convincing, akin to Jonathan Davis’s attempted angst by the 8th Korn record. Youth and fire essentially fuel Thrash and most of today’s aggressive metal, unless you play in an Iron Maiden tribute gig, a European speed metal band or subgenres of metal that trade emotion for sheer technicality, anger is indispensable. For modern thrash, overdoses of aggression is constructed through the unholy trinity of rhythm, speed and sound; if the meat and potatoes are solid, it matters little if the dessert rubs your tummy the wrong way. Yet this ultra-aggression also acts as its very limitation: the spectrum of emotional expression is limited by this instrumentation, compared to other forms of rock. The question them comes back to Metallica; they sounded contemporary, voracious and compelling in the 80’s, when all members were young and eager to carve their teeth. Now? With many new, exciting and talented metal acts around the corner (such as Mastodon, Pelican and Trivium) Metallica must strive extremely hard to ward off the curse that transforms a band into a parody of its former self. Can aggression truly carry musical creation longer than a decade, when an individual is no longer the same hungry, wide-eyed brat back in the day, but a Rolls-Royce driving, champagne sipping, beer-belly flopping middle-aged man? What is it that still fuels their desire today, excluding a guaranteed influx of capital? Perhaps the sheer perfection (or at least, continuous evolution) of a musical form they engendered is rewarding enough.

However, as a fan whose musical tastes are shifting rapidly, the revelation that I can at most stomach 3-4 albums of largely unvarying material – especially of Metal – indicate a new personal understanding of aggression in music. It doesn’t last forever.