New Metallica Album.com

“While we’re finishing up the new album, we told the dudes at the record company we thought it might be cool to dust off the old tapes and get all retro with some vinyl re-releases… First up are the first two albums (duh!?), “Kill ‘Em All” and “Ride the Lightning“, coming out on April 15 in North America and pretty fucking close to that in the rest of the world.

There will be two versions…one like the original on a single disc spinning at 33 1/3, the other a two disc, 180 gram vinyl, 45 rpm package all in a double gatefold. The music was half speed mastered from the original analog tapes at Mobile Fidelity to bring you audiophile quality.

Both versions will be available in the online store here and over at Met Club. Oh, and in case you were wondering, “Master” and “Justice” will obviously be next and should be coming out on vinyl in June.”  source

Since June 9, a mysterious image on the Metallica website has puzzled fans across the globe.

The graphic originally appeared with what looked like either the initials “DC” or two opposing magnets. An updated image on June 11 added the initials”EI,” making it then apear as if it was to be read “DEIC.”

June 12, the image was again updated, and it now appears to read “DEETIC.”(Compare all three versions in the photo gallery.) (more…)

No wonder Metallica needed a shrink. Its head is a mess.

First, the band outed downloaders, then it courted them with online exclusives. As recently as a few days ago, Metallica killed online reviews (which it also courted) of its upcoming, as-yet-untitled, full-length record. And Thursday, the band flip-flopped and posted links to the reviews on Metallica.com.

So, who’s to blame? Someone else, as usual. That’s just how therapy goes sometimes.

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.

Reporters from a number of UK-based heavy rock magazines were given a preview of six tracks from the upcoming Metallica album on Wednesday (June 4) in London.

Drummer Lars Ulrich recently stated that the yet-to-be-titled disc was a modern variation on the band’s older style.

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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.

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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. (more…)

Classic Rock Magazine has issued the following report:

Classic Rock was among a select band of rock journalists to hear a taster from the new Metallica album today. At present untitled, the band’s new record has been nicknamed by management “Nine epics and one song”. We heard six of ‘em – unmixed and all unnamed (we guess at some of the titles in our track by track, below).

Classic Rock was one of the few magazines to give the band’s last album, St. Anger, a bad review on its release, Philip Wilding giving it 2/5. “It’s unfettered hell-for-leather nonsense pretty much from beginning to end,” he wrote. “Forget nuance or gravitas – or Metallica, for that matter – this is latter-day heavy metal pulverised into a risible mush that owes as much to rock music’s deviation in the last three years, as to the credible legend that Metallica have built and cultivated since the early 80s.

“This, you reason, must be the sound of a mid-life crisis…”

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“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.

“Track two is at heart an anthemic ballad that recalls ‘Fight Fire With Fire’ and ‘Nothing Else Matters’, with a chiming guitar intro, airy vocals and some slightly convoluted, progressive-style bridges that mutate into urgent riffing, more galloping riffs and guitar solos. Again, the song has a number of different sections, but it still sounds massive.

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Well, almost! Today (Wed June 04) Metallica’s management flew into London to exclusively play almost finished tracks from the San Francisco giant’s new studio album.

Set for a release in late August / early September, the as-yet-untitled album is in the final stages of mixing. Recorded with Rick Rubin, the album will feature 10 tracks and clock in at around the 75-minute mark.

The album has been described as “nine epics and one song”, with each of the nine tracks being between six to eight minutes in length. Like the recent Death Cab For Cutie single, the first release is eight minutes in length.

On first impressions and just one listen, Rock Sound can confirm that the songs we’ve heard sound very much like classic Metallica in vibe, harking back to the days of ‘Master Of Puppets’, ‘…And Justice For All’ (but with bass) and ‘The Black Album’ – without sounding dated or tired.

Of the six tracks Rock Sound heard this afternoon, only one had a working title – ‘Flamingo’. With a slow intro, the song was reminiscent of ‘Battery’ in vibe, with two guitar solos and an undercurrent of melody and groove.

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More video from the guys…

Jun 3rd – More video

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The following list – the Definitive 200 – was developed by NARM, the National Association of Recording Merchandisers in celebration of the art form of the record album. The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame is pleased to recognize this varied collection of some of history’s most influential and popular albums, many of which are Hall of Fame Inductees.

Metallica shows up 4 times with the Black Album at #14, Master of Puppets at #75, …And justice For All at #114, and Ride the Lightning at #138.

Do you agree with this list?

See the whole list.

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So the latest video from mission:Metallica from March 31st is really cool. James walk around a little. Then James hits a punching bag. Then this other guy walks and sits. Then he twangs on his guitar. Good stuff. See it here.

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This is one for the irony file, right up there with the news that Napster is trying to remake itself (a third time) as a no-DRM download service, about half a decade too late. It seems that Metallica — the band that, more than any other, became known for its opposition to Napster and everything that the Web stood for — just launched a new site called Mission Metallica, which offers fans all kinds of special features, including the ability to hear tracks from the new album before it comes out. The site was developed by Ethan Kaplan, the head of technology at Warner Brothers Records, and his team there.

Ethan, as some of you may recall, was one of the “keynote conversations” at mesh 2008 a couple of weeks ago, where I talked with him about the future of music and the Web — and he talked about the idea that music is no longer primarily about selling an artifact (i.e., a plastic disc) but is more about the experience (if you want to read more about mesh, including Ethan’s keynote. Not long after leaving Toronto, Ethan said he was working on the launch of a really major site and a few days later the record company launched Mission Metallica, and Ethan posted a message to Twitter saying:

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For all those cannot access the missionmetallica webiste in various parts of the world, here is some new  “fly-on-the-wall” footage of Metallica in the studio working on its new album whih has surfaced on the MissionMetallica.com web site and can be viewed here: May 27, May 28.

A pair of questions: If you’re Edgar Bronfman, do you pay through the nose to keep Metallica, just to temporarily halt the parade of artists leaving the company? If you’re Metallica, do you sign the paper, cash the check, and stick it out with Warner’s sinking ship or go out on your own with crazed pricing and delusions of grandeur?

According to Bloomberg.com, Edgar Bronfman Jr., CEO of the Warner Music Group, of which Warner Bros. Records is a division, declined to comment on the status of contract negotiations with the band during a quarterly conference call earlier this month. The new Metallica album is the band’s last under its current contract with the label, which dates back to 1984 when the quartet first signed with Warner subsidiary Elektra Records.

Metallica drummer Lars Ulrich told us that finishing out its recording contract was a liberating experience for the band:

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