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This is the advice producer Rick Rubin gave Metallica over two years ago, as the band knuckled down to write its next album: “I said, ‘Imagine you’re not Metallica,’ ” Rubin recalls. ” ‘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?’ ”
“It was the obvious thing — that we didn’t see,” says singer-guitarist James Hetfield. Rubin, a longtime friend and fan who was producing a Metallica album for the first time, “gave it a focus, instantly, with that statement.”
Set for a September release on Warner Bros., Metallica’s still-untitled new album is their first since 2003’s St. Anger and their first with bassist Robert Trujillo, who joined in February of that year. It is also a stunning, overdue return to the shock and rush of the band’s speed-metal monuments, 1984’s Ride the Lightning and 1986’s Master of Puppets. The 10 long tracks are all multi-riff blizzards with jolting rhythm swerves, while lead guitarist Kirk Hammett makes up for the no-solos asceticism of St. Anger with vintage bursts of cackling-hyena wah-wah.
“Rick said he wanted to make the definitive Metallica record,” says drummer Lars Ulrich, “a step forward that incorporated elements from what he considered our creative peak. Every time there was a fork in the road, we said, ‘In 1985, we would have done this.’ ” One song illustrates Hetfield’s lyric hook “Hunt you down all nightmare long” (there are no formal song titles yet) with vicious-staccato guitar riddled with tempo U-turns and Ulrich’s double-kick-drum thunderclaps. (more…)
Metallica, an American heavy metal band that has sold over 95 million records worldwide, will arrive in Istanbul, where they will play for the third time, one day before the concert with their families. Like every other artist they also had awkward requests for the time they will spend in Turkey, including frozen beans and raw meat, said Yeldan. Special chefs will cook their meals.
Billabong has hooked up with Metallica to produce a limited-edition design co-op boardshort.
Highlights from Metallica’s June 7 performance at the Rock Am Ring festival in Nürburgring, Germany will be broadcast on Sunday, June 8 from 9:00 p.m. to 10:00 p.m. via MTV Two (formerly known as MTV2 Europe and M2), a 24-hour alternative music channel broadcast from London throughout Europe.
The other day we mentioned Metallica’s forthcoming Guitar Hero. Of course, they also have a forthcoming record. Dave Grohl wrote a non-letter about it. So, the band gave some London-area journalists the chance to listen to part of the new album recently, but as Blinded By The Hype discovered, they then tried to erase the responses from the Internet. The case they investigated is an expunged review by UK bloggers The Quietus. Remember, though, the Internet doesn’t erase that easily.
One lucky fan has the chance to win a pair of tickets and meet-and-greet passes to see Metallica play live at Rock Am Ring in Nurburgring, Germany on Saturday 7th June!
Being a fan of the Danish-Californian heavy metal quartet Metallica is hard work. They’re the quintessential band of two halves, pulling in millions of fans from 1983 to 1995 with five mostly excellent albums, which ranged in approach from youthful violence to radio-friendly hummability. In 1996, however, Metallica released the first of a shockingly poor string of alternative-rock, covers and live records, finishing up with 2003’s terrible St. Anger, the most disappointing metal CD ever released. Staying loyal to them after this many years isn’t easy, frankly. 
As more listeners turn to music downloads and the compact disc seems headed for history’s scrap heap, a growing number of artists are making a renewed effort for better-sounding tracks, online and on disc.
John Mayer thinks that “Guitar Hero was devised to bring the guitar-playing experience to the masses without them having to put anything into it. And having done both, there’s nothing like really playing guitar. I mean, what would you rather drive, a Ferrari or one of those amusement-park cars on a track?” See, guitars mean a lot to John. “It’s my flotation device, because I now exist in this celebrity sort of world. But I don’t feel like anybody’s been able to truly knock me off my legs, because I have a trade. You can’t just walk onstage and start playing guitar ’cause you thought it looked neat. With guitar, you get out what you put in, and it’s the ultimate shield for other people trying to fuckin’ take away your heart and soul. It’s a completely exposed craft. There is no facade.” When John stops getting to nail celebrities, he’ll still gonna be able to show up at a bar and wail for his pretzels. Can Guitar Hero players say that? Maybe someday he’ll be as awesome as Kirk Hammett, who recorded one of his “favorite guitar solos in the world.” On Load. 
Metallica is fueling the rumors online of and all-Metallica Guitar Hero Game (or at least add-on pack) with the following mysterious post to their MySpace blog entitled “METALLICA GUITAR HERO GAME. . . FACT OR FICTION?”:
“What do the songs sound like? Track one, which is only known by the cryptic working title ‘Flamingo’, opens up on thunderous rolling drums as lead guitar meets them head on, a flaring up in stop-start motion before it pulls itself together in rushes forward in classic thrash style, all crunching ‘Fight Fire With Fire’ riffs and drilling beats. It takes at least two minutes for James Hetfield’s vocals to come in, and while they sound furious, this isn’t the grittiest he’s ever sounded, more open in tone, but while there’s still a memorable vocal line for the ‘chorus,’ and there is so much going on in the song, and so many ideas thrown in and discarded for the next one that it’s hard on first listen to pick out one riff that you’re going to remember it by. But with galloping riffs and the return of guitar breaks rising up from out of the grooves you can hear the true METALLICA spirit, even though its as if reflected in mirrored mosaic.
