MetalSucks

I’ve been aware since the release of The Ashes of the Wake that Metallica’s Kirk Hammett is a Lamb of God fan – Kirk was spotted at that album’s release show at the Roseland Ballroom here in NYC – and I’ve wondered in the past if he wasn’t responsible for LoG suddenly becoming a go-to support act for Metallica.

And, hey, lookit: the above screenshot was taken from Chris Adler’s Facebook page, and reveals that Hammet and Adler are now working together on… something.

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I’m not convinced that any live DVD filmed after about 1992-ish will be particularly flattering to Metallica, but maybe I’m wrong. I haven’t seen them on the Death Magnetic tour – I haven’t seen them since 2006, actually – so maybe they’re killing it out there. Maybe James’ voice is 100% and Lars Ulrich took drum lessons. I dunno.

I guess I’ll find out November 23, when the band releases Francais Pour Une Nuit, a DVD documenting a French concert from this past July. But here’s the kicker: the DVD will only be available in retail stores in… France. Everyone else will have to order it from the band’s website. So, uh, yeah. Not sure what the benefits of doing that are – more profit into the band’s pocket, less shared with retailers, I guess – but there you have it.

You can watch a trailer for the DVD here (it’s not embeddable because Metallica don’t love their fans anymore). After the jump, get details of the various editions of the DVD, plus the complete track list.

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Speaking of our friends at Metal Injection: they found these groovy clips which collect all the metal-celeb guest appearances on Metalocalypse. In case ya don’t know, everyone from Hetfield and Hammett to Corpsegrinder to King Diamond has done voice work for the show… one of many reasons why it’s worth your time.

Here’s the clips from season 1; check out season 2 after the jump. And don’t forget that Dethklok have a new album coming out, to be immediately followed by a ridiculously awesome tour with Mastodon, Converge, and High on Fire.

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CORRECTION: PRATO’S QUESTION COMES FROM HERE. MY APOLOGIES TO PRATO. NO APOLOGIES TO MUSTAINE.THANKS TO BORIVOJ AT BLABBERMOUTH FOR SHOWING ME THE ERROR OF MY WAYS.

It has been a fantastic summer for feuds. Just, really top notch. Isis is mad at Revolver and I’m fairly certain that Revolver is mad at MetalSucks. Fear Factory would be like the new Van Halen, if Van Halen wasn’t still the new Van Halen. And I think it’s safe to say at this point that, pretty much no matter how this whole Dan Nelson/John Bush drama plays out, no one will ever take Anthrax seriously again (assuming they were still taking Anthrax seriously at all).

And now this. Ladies and gentleman, key founding members of three of the Big Four are now all ready to throw down. This is a clusterfuck of epic proportions. I wish you could all see my face right now, ’cause rarely am I this happy.

It’s a long story, and, as is so often the case, I am really just playing The Daily Show to Blabbermouth’s CNN. Here we go:

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There’s something reassuring about knowing that people one sometimes considers cooler than him or herself were not, in fact, always so cool.

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Everything about this makes me giggle. I mean, when he throws those lil’ horns and corrects “Satanic” to be “Slaytanic,” it’s hard to believe this fella was in Exodus once upon a time. It’s like listening to my dad try to talk about Slayer.

Part 1:

Part 2:

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Here they are performing “Blackened” at the fest.

In other new Metallinews, Kirk Hammett is saying that Jason Newsted will “most likely” perform with the band at their Rock N’ Roll Hall of fame induction. Since Newsted is the member of Metallica who managed to remain the coolest the longest (save Cliff Burton, natch), I’d actually be curious to see that… even if Jason was on Rock Star Supernova.

-AR

On Sunday night Vince and myself, through circumstances too depressing to go into here, ended up having dinner with my folks. And the thing about Mr. & Mrs. Rosenberg is this: they’re old and they’re bat shit crazy. I’m sure some of you can relate: you get a call saying “Oh, we saw this wonderful movie last night,” but then they can’t remember the name of the movie, what it was about, or who was in it. It’s quite thrilling, really.

ANYWAY, so there we were, attempting to enjoy our meals, when my parents began to insist that that they’d see a movie on television the night before that starred klepto-hottie/former Page Hamilton shtupper Winona Ryder and Shakespeare in Oh MY God is This Shit Almost Over?’s Joseph Fiennes… and featured a cameo from Metallica.

So, naturally, I assumed they were out of their fucking minds.

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For seven glorious minutes and eight fantastic seconds, I thought that Death Magnetic might be the record that Metallica should have released after the Black Album – a record that melds the pop-metal sensibilities the band adopted in the 90s with the thrashier, proggier Metallica of the 80s. That’s exactly the length of time it takes the opening track of the album, “That Was Just Your Life,” to play out, full of enough monstrous riffage, catchy hooks, and blistering solos to make up even for Lars Ulrich’s distractingly mechanical drumming. And if the nine songs that follow were as good, Death Magnetic might actually have been the album that restored Metallica to something at least resembling their former glory.

Instead, the nine songs that follow are a mixed bag – not even from song to song so much as within each song.
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To me, Metallica ceased to be relevant ages ago — so much so that I have barely heard any of their last few albums, save the studio recording footage featured in the 2004 documentary Some Kind Of Monster (which I found to be reasonably entertaining), and surprisingly I actually liked the music I heard enough to go acquire said tracks (didn’t say I paid for em tho, wink wink nudge nudge/suck it).

But upon repeated listens of that material, it was apparent even back then that the Metallica of yesteryear, an old school conceptual thrashy metal band that actually pushed new boundaries at one point both sonically and stylistically, was D-E-mf-D. And really…who cared? Shouldn’t the shelf life of once-classic bands that are now repeatedly outputting watered-down versions of their formerly original sound be minimal at best?!? I’m all for old fogies rockin it directly into the grave (hope to myself) but shit man, they best ought perpetually evolve as artists in their middle/old age somehow throughout, doncha think?

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I don’t know about all of you, but Metallica has been and will always be my favorite band in the whole world. I put down the trumpet and picked up the guitar for one reason: Metallica. When I used to draw comic books for 8 hours a day I never did it better while I was listening to …And Justice for All. The first two rock bands I discovered were Guns N’ Roses and Metallica. Why do I say rock? I got into Metallica on The Black Album. Before The Black Album I used to listen to R&B and Hip Hop. It was so bad, I would never say the word “awesome.” I thought it was too white. I called Metallica rock because for a kid like me, metal was too heavy. For a kid like me ,Metallica was the only band to get me in touch with my angry side without being too angry.

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If anyone around here has the right to dissect Metallica, it’s me – the Old Fart.

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MUSIC: Tastes Great
LYRICS: Less Filling

(3 out of 5 shofars)

-AO

It’s bad. The new Metallica album is bad. Let me explain why this shouldn’t be surprising.

This is the album that Metallica thought you wanted. This is the throwback to that classic era of the late eighties and early nineties that everyone was begging them to create. This is the album that everyone in that battered-wife fan base was hoping would come out even as the band was raking in millions while the music kept getting worse. We all sat and watched as they stumbled from failure to failure, transforming into a mainstream rock act before our eyes, holding expensive and tasteless concerts with an orchestra backing, and releasing a largely useless collection of covers before finally delivering the audio coup de grace that was St. Anger. It was the final line they had to cross. It was an output without a single redeeming factor that was only defended by the most unreasonable apologists; the sort of people who lack the ability to criticize their heroes no matter what their transgressions – and l doubt any of them have listened all the way through St. Anger in the year 2008.

So here we are at the eve of a new Metallica release and everyone’s talking about it. I bet everyone knows at least a few people who are really excited, and maybe it’s even you. It’s a false alarm though, I assure you, as this only furthers the mountain of evidence that Metallica no longer deserve an instant of our attention, appreciation or excitement outside of a live venue. Death Magnetic is more embarrassing even than their previous documentary that revealed to the world how detached and conceited they’d grown from their own creative process as well as each other. In fact, Death Magnetic is the affirmation of just that. Correction, it is the second affirmation, after St. Anger.

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When considering their latest album, it’s important to bear in mind the lasting power of Metallica’s legacy, especially when taking into consideration the weak efforts of the past couple decades. This is a band that had had a hand in building up the traditional Thrash framework throughout the 80s into an impenetrable fortress. But the castle has crumbled and they’re left with just a name. In the early 90s, they entreated us to take their hand and we would be off to the Never Neverland of mainstream success. But then Metal lost its foothold on radio and MTV, falling victim to the Grunge/Alternative phenomenon. Metallica forged onward but many were forced to ask: were they following their instinct, not a trend? Deep down inside fans felt the need to scream. The band seemed to be putting dignity to shame, with dishonor.

The Metallica of that decade was leaner, more open to pop constructs and, to their credit, this did translate into commercial success, along with a flurry of less-than-flattering press. Yet to longtime fans, when the circus rolled into town, they were playing the lead clown. Welcome to where time stands still. No one rocks and no one will. Hell, they even went country (for only one song, but still!). The band eventually lashed out at the fans and the fans revolted. Hey, honesty was our only excuse. They can try to rob us of it but it’s no use. Load, Re-Load and St. Anger each grew progressively worse. We were left to face the thing that should not be: a flaccid hard rock outfit of aging, emotionally unavailable sociopaths that had long ago lost their hunger and, subsequently, their edge. But please excuse them while they tend to how they feel. They went to therapy, filmed it and foisted it on a bewildered public. Fuck it all and fucking no regrets. Would there be a happy ending in this dark set? Did Metallica drift on numbered days?

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With Death Magnetic, Metallica’s latest attempt at getting back into the good graces/wallets of their fan base, the band officially descends into the realm of the Rolling Stones of metal. The Stones, of course, have the stronger legacy and the better/more extensive catalog of songs. But both bands have four unimpeachable albums to their credit (the Stones have Beggar’s Banquet, Let It Bleed, Exile on Main Street, and Some Girls; Metallica obviously sport their first four) and, in essence, have only been recording albums as an excuse to tour since the end of their heyday.

The biggest difference, though, is that the Stones are aware of this; though they keep trying, the songs off of anything post-Tattoo You disappear from their setlist after their first supporting tour. They recognize that they’re essentially creatively bankrupt as a band, and just happen to have one of, if not arguably the, best back catalogs of songs in popular music history, so playing live until one of/all of the band members die is both a financial and populous-satisfying maneuver. Metallica, on the other hand, have yet to notice that their best years are now 18-20 years behind them, and that they’ve been making increasingly lazy and uninspired hard rock for more than a decade. Though their fan faithful (this writer included), the ones that were initially saved by their quartet of timeless metal albums, have been waiting for a rousing return to form even after the spectacular misfire that was St Anger, this album isn’t it. In fact, Death Magnetic boils down to one thing: new Metallica playing old Metallica. They’re not unlike a pack of middle aged dudes playing their favorite Motorhead songs at the corner bar, not paying attention to how sloppy they’re performing or that their attempts at recapturing youthful abandon are just really, really sad.

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On August 25, 1988, Metallica released what many consider to be their last great album, …And Justice for All. To my ears, this would probably be my favorite Metallica album of all time if not for the lack of bass (Which, to this day, I think was an idiotic way to haze then-new-now-former bassist Jason Newstead – I mean, why would the band punish themselves by damaging their own album? How does that pay tribute to the memory of Cliff Burton? It doesn’t). Justice features Metallica at their heaviest, and, often, their proggiest. I’ve been trying all week-end to think of words that could do Justice, um, justice – but I just can’t. And I probably don’t need to to: I’m sure you all have your own feelings on this classic recording.

So here’s Metallica performing the title track on the Justice tour in ‘89. After the jump, keep the celebration going with more live clips, the now classic video for “One,” and some other cool shit.

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