MetallicaHardwired... To Self-Destruct

Latter-day Metallica material falls into two distinct categories; preserving the legacy or pushing the boundaries. Where it gets interesting with these thrash legends is that their ‘true fans’ relentlessly savage anything resembling a bold artistic statement. Just look at what happened when they dropped that album with Lou Reed. What’s more, it’s been that way since as far back as Load; a band that the world at large may never had heard of if they hadn’t written the black album has ever since been relentlessly shit on whenever they step outside of obvious thrash metal tropes.

On their eleventh studio record (fuck you, I’m including Lulu in the count), the quartet prove just how magnanimous they can be towards a fan base that routinely savages their every move. Like 2008’s Death Magnetic, here Metallica are serving up 12 songs that are wholeheartedly evoke the kind of tunes that the average Metallica fan wants to hear. Unlike Magnetic though, there’s no controversy over the mixing or anything else that could detract from what is a good album where guitar riffs gallop and solos shred and Lars does his thing. It’s the type of record that will satiate even the most quarrelsome Metallica fan, and it deserves a spot in every metalhead’s collection.

It’s the type of record that will satiate even the most quarrelsome Metallica fan, and it deserves a spot in every metalhead’s collection.

But it’s also not the type of record that you’re going to want to go back to because there’s nothing else like it. If I want to hear St Anger era Metallica I can only listen to St Anger. If I wanna hear Metallica do a brooding rip off of Lynard Skynard’s Tuesday’s Gone with Lou Reed crankily mumbling poetry about being a small-town girl—and I want to hear this fairly regularly—well, I’ve got to listen to Brandenburg Gate.

Two years down the track, I’m probably not going to have a difficult time choosing whether to put Hardwired or black album on the stereo. As gracious it is of them to put the masses’ needs ahead of their personal musical gratification, I just hope they find it within themselves to take on a few more brilliant, batshit crazy, projects before they call it quits.

STICK THIS NEXT TO: Slayer, Megadeth, Kreator
STANDOUT TRACKS: Atlas, Rise!, Now That We’re Dead, Halo On Fire