Rabish Bini Posted September 20, 2008 Share Posted September 20, 2008 Welcome to a track by track review of Metallica's new album, Death Magnetic. It's been out for over a week, and I decided most of the critics who reviewed it are garbage. 1. That Was Just Your Life: The song starts off with a beating heartbeat, and you find your heart starts pumping from the suspense. Soon, a clean guitar part kicks in, followed by another guitar. Then it gets heavier, in Battery-esque fashion, a good sign. Then the speed kicks in, restarting Metallica's tradition as a fast paced with soft intro, song as the intro song. Then Hetfield starts singing. Now this could be an album breaker for some, I like Hetfields new voice, but some will hate it. There is a slowed down pre-chorus, and then the true awesomeness kicks in, the chorus is dynamite, and the last chorus in particular shows this song is something special. Then comes, for the first time since ReLoad, a solo, which is unfortunately sub-par, the only down point of the song. 2. End of the Line: Metallica has stated that Death Magnetic is like a bridge that links ...And Justice for All, and the Black Album, and this song shows it. I don't particularly like this song, although I love the part where Hetfield croons, "The Slave Becomes The Master," best line in the album. Solo is better than previous song, but that's about all I have to say on this song. It's average. 3. Broken, Beat & Scarred: A future fan-favourite. Whatever crappiness was in End of the Line, is gone in Broken, Beat & Scarred. I can just imagine the crowd singing "Show, your, scars!" or "We Die Hard!" throughout the chorus's. A brilliant song with extremely cheesy lyrics and awesome chorus. A reviewer once said, "So what if the lyrics are cheesy, I like cheese." And I agree with him. And of course, the solo, which I am fairly impressed with, Good Work Metallica. Something you may have notice by now, is Hetfield no longer sings about his personal demons, the lyrics seem to be focused on Metallica returning to status of "Thrash Gods." 4. The Day the Never Comes: The first single from the album, and again restarts the Metallica tradition of having a ballad as the fourth song. A good song, sorta like a mix between "One" and "Fade to Black." When the second chorus ends, and the traditional ballad solo/heavy bit starts, you are blown away, the solo is as awesome as ever, and Metallica has really outdone themselves, the only thing I complain about is the drumming. Lars basically keeps the same drum beat throughout the whole solo, which is boring. 5. All Nightmare Long: Do not be fooled by the absolutely horrendous name, it is a brilliant song, one of the best on the album. It's fast paced, in Slayer like fashion, which is masterfully done, Slayer would be proud. The chorus is unbelievably awesome, the solo is killer and the stop towards the ends of the song is heart-stopping. What a shame the names awful, if not for that, it would be a perfect song. 6. Cyanide: The third single from the album, and one of the not so great ones. It has an awesome vocal hook when Hetfield sings, "Empty they say." which is absolutely brilliant, but this songs too Load/ReLoad for my tastes, and not very well done. One point of interest though is the bass line towards the start, the bass in this song really shows what new member Rob Trujillo can do, and shows him as a brilliant bassist. 7. The Unforgiven III: When I first saw the track listing for Death Magnetic, this song immediately caught my attention. The first Unforgiven was epic, a true classic, the second one was fairly good IMO, but how would this one stack up? Very well. It's something different, it's a ballad, but it's not a ballad, if that makes any sense. It starts off with a keyboard and French horn intro, and you're sitting there thinking, "have I got the right cd?" The clean guitar bit kicks in around the 0:50 mark, and things get heavier from there, until the chorus. The chorus is epic, when the song slows down hugely, and even has some French horn/violin in the background. Soon, Hetfield starts yelling "Forgive me, forgive me not!" which is when the power of the solo kicks in, one of the best solos on the album, and really shows how Hammet has evolved as a guitarist. The song ends with the soft chorus and a gentle whisper... 8. The Judas Kiss: The fourth single. An interesting song name, no doubt, but not a very good song. As critics have said, it feels like filler material. The only good points being the chorus', where Hetters screams "BOW DOWN!", I can just imagine thousands of people yelling it out at concerts. The solo is also good, but apart from that, a sub-par song. 9. Suicide & Redemption: An instrumental, another tradition as it's in the ninth slot. An okay song, although the real shining point is Trujillo's bass, it really shines plenty of times throughout this song, and underlines his name as a brilliant bassist. Other than that, the song is basically a pile of unused riffs, a good listen, but nothing special. 10. My Apocalypse: Third single. A great song IMHO, very punk-esque. But, it starts off with the riff as an intro, and the riff carries right through to the solo, and there's no buildup before the chorus'. While it doesn't really matter, they could've added a proper intro. The solo is very short and sharp, but brilliant nonetheless, great to listen to. "Suffer forever My Apocalypse." whatever that means... All in all, while not as good as the "Big 3" (RtL, MoP, AJFA), a worthy addition to Metallica's list of albums, and much better than there recent garbage, if you end up buying it, you know your money will be well spent. 8.5/10 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jrrtoken Posted September 20, 2008 Share Posted September 20, 2008 Good review. Yeah, Death Magnetic was a lot better than any of their recent stuff (Load, ReLoad St. Anger), but it's still not anywhere as good as "old-school" Metallica (Kill 'Em All, Ride the Lightning, Master of Puppets, ...And Justice for All). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rabish Bini Posted September 21, 2008 Author Share Posted September 21, 2008 Well, I thought it was better than Kill 'Em All, but I didn't really like Kill 'Em All... ...And Justice for All was there best IMO. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Boba Rhett Posted September 21, 2008 Share Posted September 21, 2008 Good review. I've been listening to 4 and 7 a lot. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rabish Bini Posted September 21, 2008 Author Share Posted September 21, 2008 They're pretty good songs, my favourite is That Was Just Your Life. Sounds the most like their old stuff. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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