Editing seems to be a lost art. When it comes to art in all its popular forms, more and more commonly referred to in our modern lexicon with the vulgar epithet ‘content,’ we seem to want more, without limit. Creators are no longer hemmed in with reasonable constraint; instead they are allowed to tell their stories in whatever time they deem necessary. To posit an example, Christopher Nolan was such a hot property coming off the success of “The Dark Knight” that no one dared take the editor’s scalpel to “Interstellar.” Since then, feature films have increased in length in direct proportion to the fame of the director, with no particular end in the near future. That’s not a sin in any way, merely a notable trend, as even the newest John Wick chapter is greater than two and a half hours in length, unheard of for an action movie (the two parts of ‘Kill Bill’ and ‘Red Cliff’ notwithstanding.)
Enter Metallica, a band whose pendulous history seems itself a series of wanderings worthy of a Homerian epic. Each Metallica album is a story unto itself – if space aliens landed and demanded of you “tell us the complete story of Metallica in three albums or less,” you’d be unable to, because all of the band’s records could be subjected to a graduate-level case study (good or bad.)
With those two concepts as the backdrop, we come to Metallica’s new album “72 Seasons.” Metallica is no stranger to the concept of artistic expression through the lens of a ponderously long thrash song. In seriousness, you’ve no doubt listened to “…And Justice For All,” which is the poster child for meandering riffs and tangents that ultimately attempt to weave a tapestry that’s something other than a tangled mess. You can probably sense where some of this article is heading.
“72 Seasons” exists at an extraordinarily novel crossroads. It’s Metallica to be sure, living creatively unrestrained, as sharp and accessible and intuitive as they’ve ever been, and also transitioning back toward the style of rock ‘n’ metal which was the source of such acrimony among their fan base some twenty-five years ago.
The album kicks things off with the title track, which is a meaty listen at seven minutes, as so many cuts on the album are. It’s never boring, though – the cut grabs immediate notice with a tension-building staccato opening that sounds like…Dick Dale’s “Misirlou” If that sounds strange, that’s because it is, but that’s what it sounds like. The song never quite channels that energy again, but the basic idea of a riff that constantly pistons throughout is pervasive for the duration.
We then move seamlessly into “Shadows Follow”…a little too seamlessly. The next six minutes of the record feels like an extension of the first seven minutes, not a separate track in its own right. This is where “72 Seasons” starts to get complicated. At the risk of spoiling the rest of this article, the album is a good album, but it contains too many stretches that sound, for lack of a more erudite journalistic expression, same-y. Inevitably, when there’s a lot of long songs that start to sound similar, an album treads into dangerous territory of fading interest.
As mentioned above, we’ve heard this from the mighty Metallica before, but where this new effort deviates from the accepted curve is that there are whole stretches where Metallica doesn’t sound like Metallica. Or at least, not any Metallica we’ve heard before.
Setting aside that James Hetfield’s characteristic rasp has receded somewhat, as he takes on a less aggressive affect for this record, listen to “Screaming Suicide” for a minute. Catchy tune, hits a lot of the right tones, but does this honestly sound like a Metallica song? The song is a banger to be sure, but it sounds like a southern rock trucking anthem more than anything else.
Later on, the single “Lux Æterna,” perhaps not coincidentally the shortest song on the record. And it’s slick and tight and great, but it’s also akin to a B-side remix of Motörhead’s “Overkill,” right down to the false ending.
It’s easy to get too caught up in the constricting conventions of genre definitions when such things are lazy and immaterial, but at this point in “72 Seasons,” it’s hard not to consider the question of whether this is a metal record or a rock record? And what are the implications or inferences, if any, both for the album and the band depending on the answer?
There’s only song on the album that really doesn’t work at all, which is “Crown Of Barbed Wire” immediately following “Lux Æterna.” The central riff is fine, but it never leads to anything, and the way James whines out the chorus through gritted teeth just doesn’t fit within the pocket of the song; the cadence is awkward at best.
Skipping past “Chasing Light,” which is generic, store-brand Metallica if ever there’s been, we get to “If Darkness Had A Son” which will tie all these points together. This song is everything that is right and wrong with “72 Seasons.” The riff is snappy and idiomatic for a band that’s given us some of the great metal riffs of the genre’s history. The chorus is big and bombastic and the verses properly foreboding. Kirk unleashes a signature Kirk solo. But it’s six-and-a-half minutes, and it takes too damn long to make a decision about when to move between pieces. It reminds of some of the cuts on Lazarus AD’s debut “The Onslaught” where there was fat that could have been trimmed but wasn’t. Lazarus AD was guilty of being young, raw and undisciplined in their songwriting. Metallica is perhaps guilty instead of simple hubris; the belief that listeners are willing to wait for them because of the name at the top of the album.
In so many ways, “72 Seasons” calls back to “Death Magnetic,” but pales just enough in imitation to remind that it is not “Death Magnetic.” That prior album certainly had its healthy share of songs that got long in the tooth, but they never lost direction or purpose. Metallica now seems to believe they can write like that all the time, attempting with some vanity to capture that lightning twice. Near the end of this new effort, we are given the closest taste of that former album in “Room of Mirrors,” which might be the best song on the album that sounds like a Metallica song. The pacing is right, the groove is right, the energy is high, even if the song doesn’t have that signature Metallica threat leering over it. This is Metallica at their creative best, laying harmonies in the solo to give the listener the kind of artistic depth that we expect from a legend.
To read this back in conclusion, it probably seems like “72 Seasons” has few if any redeeming traits, which isn’t true at all. Please don’t be mistaken, aside from “Crown of Barbed Wire,” every song on this record has a part or a piece that’s interesting. This is Metallica, after all; the talent and know-how of the players involved ensures that the experience will never be boring. “72 Seasons” is actually better than its cumbersome predecessor, “Hardwired…to Self-Destruct,” but it is flawed in that it drags on because Metallica refuses to edit themselves into smaller pieces. This is the “Interstellar” to “Death Magnetic’s” “Dark Knight.”
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