date: 21 September 2008
This is not an album review. Another review for the latest Metallica album would be useless, it is offered for streaming freely and completely on http://www.metallica.com, it’s on all the torrents in the world, your buddies have it and they can make a cool gesture and give it to you. And it’s in the stores too. Really, no shit!
Those lines of mine are actually 2 conclusions I jumped into regarding the human nature and applicable to the latest Metallica album, Death Magnetic. It won’t sound nice, won’t enchant the eye, or the mind. Good or bad, they’re my conclusions and it really doesn’t matter whether they’re true or the people agree on them. But there’s also an incentive in the ending lines, I hope at least it would make the lecture worth reading.
Do not learn from your own mistakes
As a big band or a huge band releases an album, all publications, printed or online, feed up the world with reviews. On the grounds of “hey, it’s the band X, they’re genius, they’re heavy as shit, we just can’t leave them aside”, grounds applicable even to glossy magazines. It’d be shitty for Metallica to come out with a release and not be mentioned in every fucking publication.
OK, we write. But what shall we write? It’s big band, with a large fanbase. But… the number of fans seems to be decreasing. But… the rock music seems to be back in charts. But... they don’t have the guts they used to have. But… the latest album is okay. But... the last decade they were faint. What if I give it a bad rank and the fans will come and pee on my magazine? Let’s give it a satisfactory rank, ‘cause it’s not they way it used to be, but it’s not that bad either, this way we’ll satisfy the fans as well. What the hell, it’s Metallica, how bad can it be? Everyone’s playing it safe. Except Metallica in 2003, when they released St. Anger. So that a shitload of reviewers were screwed after describing the disk as “energetic, raw, a true fist in the face of the metal albums, a comeback to heavy metal after the failures called Load/Reload etc”. Because most of the people listening to Metallica hated that album. I have started saying I won’t make album reviews, so I don’t intend saying a thing about those albums. But I’m happy and satisfied thinking of what it happened to those who played safe with the last but one Metallica album.
Now the first conclusion comes. 2008, new Metallica album, Death Magnetic . People hate Metallica after 17 years of shitty music (20 years in others opinions). Fuck you, Metallica! Washed-up has-beens! Lars can’t beat the drums! James is singing yoddles instead of thrashy vocals. Bob Rock turned them in a pussy band! St Anger is nu-metal and nu-metal sucks by default! The sound is shitty! Lars’ snare drum is a trash can! The sound is shitty! The disk is mastered too much and has no balls! Metallica are sell-outs, corporate whores! AAAAAAAHHHH!!! How coolwe are! We fucked Metallica’s asses! How can we write positive stuff about Metallica when they betrayed us years ago? So everyone is playing safe again, watching the fight in the ring from a comfortable distance. The internet is full of stuff like: “the latest Metallica isn’t as bad as Load/Reload/St Anger, but it ain’t too good either. How could they come out with something good after three failures? Or... it’s quite all right, I actually liked two or three tracks, but the sound sucks. Mix it again, master it again and then give it to me for another try!”
So look how it can’t be written entirely positive about a very good album. It is a very good album, but the band disappointed us and now we must punish it, to make it realize what it’s done and never do it again! Guess what, motherfuckers! The new Metallica album is fabulous and all who can make the difference between the ring bell and the toilet flushing water realized that. That’s the reason of the lack of credibility of those who’ll fuck this album and put it to the ground only because it’s Metallica signature. Some never bring themselves back to reason. Do I ask too much if I want to read honest opinions, correct characterizations, lacking prejudices and justified negative opinions? I don’t think so!
2. Hate your fellow!
Envy him, covet his goods, wish him to have uglier wife than yours, older often breaking car, smaller house, smaller cock, older cell, larger baldness and less money. If the fellow happens to be in a higher position than yours, even better when he’s on his knees. If he’s your boss, it’s dream. If he’s your model or your idol, it’s just perfect. We are living in a world where we enjoy seeing the big ones break their necks when falling. This is human nature, even though “the big ones” mean Metallica.
Is Metallica to blame? We stated anyway at pct 1 that they were shitty. Are the times we’re living to blame? Or our society teaching us to pay attention only to scandals, to watch murder news all day long, to enjoy someone else’s misfortune and wish for other’s misfortune. Is the lacking of accomplishment in some lives to blame, lack of accomplishment caressed within their minds only by the illusion that they are able to virtually minimize someone bigger than they are? Metallica gave no reason for being hated with this new album, however I think this album must have had been named Hate Magnetic, ‘cause it seem s that this bands attracts all the hate in the world like a fucking magnet. Would someone have cared, would have the band been put against the wall and fired at will? Definitely not, but we love seeing the big ones on the ground. We don’t need logical arguments for that, it’s just human nature.
This kind of hate is often met on the Internet, where I have found all those statements. It’s naturally for free, so everybody crowds to post something about it. Including me. From the most talented ones to those who have no idea how to spell, from the smartest to the most idiots, official voices or simple forum users, all came to write down at least a “Metallica rules /sucks!” I read Blabbermouth.net daily and I am astonished by the echoes over there. It seems like people don’t want to be good and can’t be thanked whatsoever. When logical arguments can not be found, aberrations fill in. Here there are few examples making me want to do what Vlad Tepes did with the mentally deranged ones: “Metallica ceased existing when Cliff Burton passed away”, “The latest disk sucks”. “The latest disk doesn’t suck but anyway, they won’t make Master of Puppets or … And Justice for all ever again. “I can’t hear the bass”. “Lars is bald and he looks like a freaking vegetable”, “AC/DC will come out with a record that will blow this one” or the afore-mentioned “It is mastered too much”. I say it again: guess what? It’s 2008 news-fucking-flash – they won’t write another MoP or AJFA, that’s impossible, 20 years have passed! Cliff is dead, RIP, he’d been a great bass player, James wears one of his rings on his finger, yes, the mastering is heavier in 2008, yes, Lars got old. Metallica won’t make another Master of Puppets, wood floats, Earth revolves around the Sun. So fucking what?!
Gentle men with good soul and good mind; listen to this record for yourselves, don’t listen to what one or another have to say (that goes for any record). The latest Metallica effort has its chance to be appreciated by anyone who had enjoyed the first four or five releases, as long as the listener is able to keep himself away from my conclusions.
Balaurul - Trooper
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