Metallica is back to the band we knew around the ...And Justice for All days. The guitar sound is back. I've been a fan since the late 80's when I grew dis-satisfied with the monotonous, repetitive sound of radio. I plowed through various albums before I bought AJFA on cassette and played it non-stop for months. For those of you in your 20's or younger, cassettes were rectangular shaped media devices that generally held one album. The "mix tape" was a popular do it yourself, similar to your mp3 playlist. Ask you parents or older siblings. Then ask grandpa about the 8-track.
To Death Magnetic, the title describes the morbid tone of the album. Very dark, but you are drawn to it. While I listened to the album about 3 times over the weekend, I have yet to garner all the lyrics, so they could be singing about daisies. OK, probably dead ones. Some might say Robert Trujillo was not mixing well with the band. If it was a problem, it's been solved as I think he's nailed the "true" Metallica sound on bass.
My favorites on the album include "That Was Just Your Life" and "The End of the Line", the first two tracks. The only disappointment would be "Unforgiven III". I loved "The Unforgiven" from their self-titled album and think it would have been fabulous cross-promotion for the Clint Eastwood movie Unforgiven that was released around the same time. But III is dull compared to the rest of the album.
An funny story when I bought it at the national electronics store on Saturday. I was looking at the display trying to find a copy that was just the album for $9.99. They were selling a copy for $39.99 that included a "free" download for Guitar Hero III on Xbox. From behind, I heard a whisper, "Just doooo it". I looked around and saw a guy in his late 20's. He picked up a copy of the Xbox version and started walking away again saying "Just do it". I told him I wanted to, but "Not going to get the $40 version". He turned around and said "Thanks! I don't want that one either". We found our $10 copies a few seconds later.
My rating is "Buy Digitally". Unless you are a huge Metallica fan, there's no need to get the CD. Click here to sample or buy on iTunes.
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