Meet Me Tonight On the Loose Ends
I have a lot of topics out there I need to get to around here and I just haven’t had the time to explore them all in the depth and at the speed with which I’d like. I want to continue re-visiting Tom Petty’s Echo. I also want to continue with the Pink Floyd discussion we started (as I finish reviewing David Gilmour’s Live in Gdansk), and I’ve started listening again to Metallica’s Death Magnetic and I’d like to get some of my thoughts on it out there.
I’ll start with a little Metallica discussion. For starters, I’d like to point you to my friend Mark Saleski’s ruminations on Death Magnetic. I’m not sure I’m going to come to the same conclusions, but he makes some very good points.
The first thing I noticed with DM is that Metallica had a bit of an Accelerate moment, wherein R.E.M. re-awakened Peter Buck. After wasting Kirk Hammett on St. Anger , Metallica once again integrates the frenetic licks of one of metal’s great lead guitarists. For that alone, Death Magnetic is a step forward, back. I’m not going to waste a lot of time taking the piss out of St. Anger, but any album that completely ignores Hammett is making a mistake. That doesn’t happen on this record. If Kirk is one of the reasons you listen to Metallica, Death Magnetic gives you a reason to listen.
Filed under: Tags: Metallica, Pink Floyd, R.E.M., Tom Petty
i have to say that i kinda liked St. Anger because it was so raw, almost like punk. the lack of guitar solos was a little weird, i’ll admit.
to be honest though, i listen to the band more for the rhythm parts. that’s just me being a rhythm guitar fan.
i do wish Kirk would stop using that damned wah wah pedal. or maybe only use it once per record or something.
I agree with pieces of this, but not the totality. First, I like raw sounds but the technique used to record Lars’ drums cannot be forgotten fast and often enough.
I understand the appeal of raw, punk music but I don’t think it fit Metallica well, although I understand from what you told me of Some Kind of Monster, there was a lot flowing through them during this time period.
I love rhythm guitar and think Hetfield has been an absolute master of it. His parts have often been favorites of mine. Yes, Kirk gets a little wah-wah happy but I don’t know if I’ve ever heard anyone use it quite like he does at that speed and intensity and whatnot.
I hear you working though, Mark.
Holy crap, some of those first few songs were intense, it was nice to hear those classic ‘jugita-jugita-jugita’ guitar fills… it was like these were pulled from a vault or something.
Honestly, if I listened to All NIghtmare Long on the subway in the AM, I would totally punch someone. So I will save it for the studio!
As an album, it stumbles a bit with Cyanide and Unforgiven III (come on, Unforgiven 1 and 2 both sucked, do we need a 3?), but it was great stuff otherwise.
Funny, I liked “Unforgiven III” just a little bit but I cringe that it’s called that. I wish they’d have left the saga alone. The first “Unforgiven” is okay. Well, it’s good. I like it. It’s not my favorite Metallica song by any stretch, but I can listen to it. The second one was utter crap.
I had to stop listening to the album mid-morning yesterday and I have a savage headache today, so I’m going to have to get back to this one.
I’m going to side with Mr. Sahm on the (and I hate saying this) “Unforgiven Trilogy.” (Did we need a saga?! Are they going to play all three together live? Can anyone say “massive pee break”?) But I have to thank the band for giving me a hilarious sound byte that constantly runs through my head for the past 17 years: “I dub thee unforgiven.” There are just so many times when you can use that.
This third one is junk, pure psychobabble shit - “How can I blame you when it’s me I can’t forgive?” That sounds like something that ratty little therapist from Some Kind Of Monster finally managed to weasel into a song (him handing over lyric suggestions was seriously one of the best moments of the entire movie.)
Oh, and I’m with Mr. Saleski pretty much all the way - St. Anger is actually overall pretty good. I still like it - lyrically stupid, yes, but then so is this new one. This isn’t rocket surgery.
I’m not a big fan of Kirk Hammett’s solos so I wasn’t that sad to see them go - but getting rid of them all together is pretty dumb. I just don’t think he has anything to say with his solos, so maybe minimizing them is the best way to go. There’s only so many variations of “wah wah widdly widdly widdly wah wah wah” one can do before all possibilities have been exhausted. Tightening the reins on Kirk was not necessarily a bad thing. Putting him in a straight jacket might not be the best idea, either, however.
This amount of dissent is not allowed. Everyone back to your respective corners until you’ve come back with some proper opinions.
Lyrically, I don’t like “III” but the music is all right. The only words from that album I remember are “My Apocalypse.” The trilogy was a wretched, bad idea.
The masses are wrong most of the time, but they are right about St. Anger. You are both welcome to it. Tightening the reigns on Kirk may not be such a bad thing, but eliminating him completely was a horrible decision.
I think he has a little more variety to his playing than either of you do, obviously. I like a lot of his leads.
“Unforgiven I” was only cool, because it had a really cool and well shot video. But then, I know you’re a sucker for visuals influencing your music, Josh, so I will… ahem… forgive you.
I will also say I liked a few of the St. Anger tracks. I’d actually trade half of the samples I’ve mined over the years for some of those Frantic snares.