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Is there anything Rick Rubin can’t do? It’s been a good 15 years since Metallica started losing it, five since St. Anger helped globally popularize the idea of its retirement. Even the band – down Jason Newsted and awaiting ex-Suicidal Tendencies bassist Robert Trujillo’s absorption into the group – admitted that its last album, tunelessly pieced together from studio jams and group-therapy notes, had no songs. Lars Ulrich’s drums didn’t sound like drums any more. The new tunes were ignored on tour and the band members performed facing in four different directions. It was all but done. (more…)
Call Death Magnetic Kirk Hammett’s revenge. Famously browbeaten into accepting Lars Ulrich and producer Bob Rock’s dictum that guitar solos were “dated” and thereby verboten for 2003’s St. Anger — a fraught recording chronicled on the 2004 documentary Some Kind of Monster — Metallica’s lead guitarist dominates this 2008 sequel, playing with a euphoric fury not heard in years, if not decades. This aesthetic shift isn’t because Hammett suddenly rules the band: powerless to add solos to St. Anger, he couldn’t reinstate them without the blessing of Ulrich and James Hetfield, the politburo of Metallica. The duo suffered some combination of shame and humility in the wake of the muddled St. Anger and Monster, convincing these two unmovable forces to change direction. They ditched longtime producer Rock — who helmed every album since 1991’s breakthrough blockbuster Metallica — in favor of Rick Rubin, patron saint of all veteran rockers looking to reconnect with their early spark. Rubin may be the go-to producer for wayward superstars, but as the producer of Slayer, he’s also rooted in thrash, so he understands the core of Metallica’s greatness and gently steers them back to basics on Death Magnetic. 
Metallica’s new album, 
Metallica have posted another song, “My Apocalypse,” from their upcoming album, “Death Magnetic,” online. Listen to it 
Metallica debuted a scorching new song, Cyanide, during their headlining set on Saturday night (August 9) at Ozzfest. It marked the first time that the band has performed any material in concert from the upcoming Death Magnetic.
Like its predecessor “St. Anger,” the new Metallica album, “Death Magnetic,” will be released worldwide off-cycle on Friday Sept. 12 via Warner Bros. No reason was given for the switch from a traditional Monday/Tuesday release; in 2003, the group’s label claimed Friday was chosen to prevent pirated copies of “St. Anger” from entering the marketplace. 
Metallica have denied that ‘The Day That Never Comes’, the first song from their new album, is an attempt to send a political statement about America’s ongoing involvement with the war in Iraq.The video for the song, which is due to be released in early September, depicts a solider aiding a wounded solider.
