Metallica - 72 Seasons

Alright, here's the deal. Slayer retired on a high note, Megadeth has been a revolving supergroup playing Dave Mustaine riffs since the late 90s, Anthrax is not my cup of coffee, and Kill 'Em All through S&M is my Metallica. But they have a new album, because they're allowed to make any album they feel like, and it at least promises to rock in a Metallica type way. After all that Disco, they'd have to really be off their rockers to disappoint. 

But more importantly, liking or not liking it isn't actually the point. The point is talking about listening to it. It's easy to joke around and criticize most anything, much harder (ocassionally impossible) to dissect why you actually enjoy something. Sure it's mass produced media, sure Metallica is ridiculously famous, but there's certainly no ambiguity as to what this album is about, unless you aren't familiar with dividing a year into 4 seasons or what things look like after being lit on fire. We're combing through what appears to be the wreckage of the tire fire that is being born up to being 18. We're not going to play the "this is James Hetfield's life" game, we will instead consider whatever we get to be part of a larger story Metallica wants to tell. It's a perspective, our goal is simply to understand that perspective. We might like it, we might hate it, we might disagree, the fun is in finding out. 

The one caveat is that it could be a great album that doesn't lend itself to 4 3-song chunks as it appears on vinyl, but we'll prepare to meet Kali in Hell, i mean light that bridge on fire if/when we get there. Sorry, Indiana Jonesed myself into that joke. Here we go for real this time. 

18 and life to go-o-woah. I'm joking, but seriously that's a thrasher of a title-track opener to say the least. 

Twisting turning through the... sorry, i'll stop, Shadows Follow does not lower the intensity one bit. Very nice. 

Holy shit. I know we have 3/4 of the album left to hear, but this is good. It sounds like Metallica. Not Metallica trying something, or experimenting, or reinventing themselves, it sounds like new music from Metallica. The last 3 albums or whatever had random moments of that, but the overwhelming question was always "why is Metallica still making albums at all?" I don't hear any question here, i hear neck wrecking riffage, James howling at the moon, Kirk squiggly pentatonic spaggetioing all over Robert and Lars being a badass rhythm section, so far this thing flat out rocks. 

But, but, Metallica's too old and rich to be making albums. Horse testicles. There's no age or wealth limit for music, same as there's no minimum technical requirement. I'm allowed to enjoy listening to a screetchy 7th grader more than Hillary Hahn or Josh Bell. I'm also allowed to like things millionaires do. If memory serves, Metallica made their money by being an entertaining Metal band, not selling snake oil or the intellectual equivalent of snake oil. Yes, there are some deep cuts on this album that can definitely be considered awkward and clunky on first listen, but i suspect that's just me not knowing what they're going to play. Plus, every single Metallica album has at least one not that great song. Conversely, i don't hear any obvious standout "this'll sell ablums" type radio single, and for an album that's a good thing. If you're expecting a big Prog style instrumental like the old days, you'll still be expecting it long after this album is over, but otherwise i think we can all agree that none of this sucks. 

As for hyper-technical prowess, sometimes i am not in the mood for Tim Henson style muppetry, or most of the time in the case of Sandal-core. Polyphia is like designer cupcakes, a sometimes food. Metallica though, that's like a plateful of protein, starch, and brightly colored vegetables; you feel like you ate a full meal, Andy Griffith in his Colonel Sanders outfit figured out who the real murderer was, and now it's naptime. 

Lyrically we'd have to do 20 or 30 more listens to properly digest it all, but i can already tell you that won't be too difficult. Aside from the length, 72 Seasons is a totally easy and enjoyable listen. There's a fair bit of Load/Reload style Hard Rock, but overall it's definitely carpal tunnel inducing Thrash, and i couldn't be happier. 

Look at it this way, there is no other band on the planet that sounds like Metallica (not counting that impression Avenged Sevenfold did that one time), and if they're going to keep making new music, i'll take 72 Seasons over St. Anger every single day of the week; silly badoinging snare drum was the least of that album's problems (most of those problems turning out to be Bob Rock). Why am i not kinder to Hardwired...? Well, truth be told it's because even in 2016 they all still kind of had their heads up their own asses and that's a turn off. This time though they all quarantined themselves in their own home studios while cooperating to make an album out of it. And they did. They wanted to make this, they made it for themselves and their own empire published it, and i think it shows. I want to listen to it again, which is a whole lot more than i can say for anything they've created in this 21st century, so if you're on the fence about giving it a listen, take that into consideration.