Metallica: Disguised as Themselves

That familiar feeling of dread spread through my body as I browsed through the press notes:

Kirk Hammett - "This album is some of the best music we've made in the past 15 years.

James Hetfield - This band is still relevant. We worked through our problems and now we've gone to work capturing our musical essence. We're hungry."

I took a deep breath and put down the paper. It’s the exact same feeling of dread I had when the Rolling Stones released A Bigger Bang in 2005, when Pearl Jam released their self-titled disc in 2006, and every 6 months when Neil Young throws together a new release.

Why can’t I just let go? These comeback albums are never any good, but there I’ll be at the music store, sheepishly approaching the female clerk with my copy of Death Magnetic (and maybe the new My Morning Jacket or something so as not to look too out of touch). I’d really feel more comfortable buying pornography.

Rock n’ roll is supposed to capture that moment. The embodiment of the raw excitement of youth. As Neil Young says, it’s "something you can’t plan for. Something that you didn’t expect." Naturally, when a rock band pours over their back catalogue for inspiration, the results are almost never satisfying. Circumstances never repeat themselves exactly.

Metallica’s choice of Rick Rubin as producer only added to my cynicism. Rubin has lived a charmed life ever since LL Cool J dropped-off a demo cassette at his university dorm in 1984, and it seems that lately everything this guy touches turns to gold. In 2007 alone, Rubin produced Grammy-winners for Best Album, Record of the Year, Best Rock Album, Best Country Album, and walked away with his own Grammy for Producer of the Year - Non-classical.

None of this can usurp my deep-seeded suspicion that Rubin has no fucking clue what he’s doing. I imagined Metallica aimlessly jamming in their Bay-area studio, with Rubin there in pajama bottoms, saying "those are some good chords, guys, yeah, really strong pre-chorus there," and picking bread crumbs from his disgusting beard. Maybe Phil Towle, the band’s sweater-wearing therapist documented in 2004’s Some Kind Of Monster, would be there too for inspiration.

Rubin’s mantra was: "Imagine you don't have any hits to play, and you have to come up with material to play in a battle of the bands. What do you sound like?" He told them that 1986’s Master of Puppets was their best album, and, (I’m paraphrasing through drummer Lars Ulrich), "don’t be afraid of your past. You don’t have to copy it, but it’s O.K. to be inspired by it."

For 16 years now, Metallica fans have been yearning for an old-school, thrash metal album of new material, and with the release of Death Magnetic, it looked like they were finally going to get it. Careful what you wish for indeed.

All this adds up to my surprise when I actually listened to Death Magnetic. It is thoroughly enjoyable. It’s really striking to see a band so fully and abruptly restored. Yes, they bite heavily on their 80s back catalogue, though they sound less angry now and more confident. "Judas Kiss" has some of the ‘nobody’s better than us’ flair from 1988’s And Justice For All…. "Cyanide" overcomes terrible lyrics with an indomitable riff. "That Was Just Your Life" trashes with a verse-chorus pop sensibility not evident since 1984’s Ride the Lightning, my personal favourite.

Lead guitarist Kirk Hammett has re-entered the creative fray, soloing with precision and passion, favouring melody over pure skill and speed. (But he still shreds like a motherfucker). James Hetfield seems to have found his old mic from the And Justice For All… sessions, singing in an upper register that I assumed he couldn’t still do. On this journey through their past, Metallica takes a few side roads, evoking the triple-guitar harmonies of Judas Priest, the gallop of Iron Maiden, culminating with an album that acts as sort of a love letter to the Heavy Metal genre that used to be.

Don’t get me wrong, it’s not all stellar. The first single, "The Day That Never Comes," plods along for 4 minutes like a third-rate rip-off of "The Unforgiven." This left me doubly concerned, since the back cover informed me that there was still a track 7 to listen to entitled "The Unforgiven III."

What is "The Unforgiven III?" A ploy to get guys like me to buy the album? I hear no stylistic or lyrical linkage to versions I and II, beside the repeated outro mantra "Forgive me, Forgive me not." There are at least three songs on Death Magnetic equally worthy of being titled "The Unforgiven III."

At many points, Death Magnetic does come across as four forty-something men thrashing away in random pursuit of their old sound. But whenever this would wear on me, James Hetfield quickly steps to the mic and roars like a wildebeest, allaying all fears.

So, how did Metallica succeed in doing what The Rolling Stones, Pearl Jam, and Paul McCartney continually fail at, and something Led Zeppelin won’t even bother trying? The documentary Some Kind of Monster may shed some light. Here was the portrayal of the members of Metallica in a permanent state of arrested development, infantilized from years of partying and instant gratification. As Chuck Klosterman noted in his review, "Metallica’s massive success - and the means through which they achieved it - meant they never had to mature intellectually past the age of 19."

This condition gives Hetfield the ability in 2008 to pen junior high poetry like-

"Suicide, I've already died

You're just the funeral I've been waiting for

Cyanide, living dead inside

Break this empty shell forevermore"

-And, most importantly, sing it with conviction.

When Eddie Vedder or Mick Jagger tries to write and sing as if he’s 22, it sounds stupid and quickly turns into self-parody. They both lived the rock n’ roll lifestyle, but became vastly different people. When James Hetfield does it, it sounds authentic because he really is a 22-year-old boy disguised in a 45-year-old’s man body. And on Death Magnetic, his bandmates respond in tow to make some of their most enthusiastic recordings in years.

It can’t be too difficult to tap into the spirit of your lost youth, when you’re still mired in it. It’s easier now to understand why Metallica had such a rough time with artistic growth in the 1990s, and why most fans hated Load/Re-load and St. Anger.

It’s unlikely Death Magnetic will top any Metallica ‘best-of’ lists, and it certainly won’t push the metal genre forward, but it sure is fun to listen to. It made me realize I still love Metallica, when I’d forgotten I liked them, or metal for that matter. I have no problem with growing up, so long as these guys never have to.

Further reading/viewing:

"Metallica: Some Kind of Monster" Paramount (2004)

"Dixie Chicks: Shut Up and Sing" The Weinstein Company (2006)

"Band on the Couch" by Chuck Klosterman, NY Times - June 20, 2004

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html

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