METALLICA Producer Comments On Recording Process, Sound Of New Material

In the latest issue of Mixdown magazine (issue #100, dated August 2002),METALLICA producer Bob Rock commented on the recording process for the band's much-anticipated new album and the musical direction of said effort, calling it "different" but emphasizing that the changes that have taken place in the group's sound are, for the most part, "subtle".

Here are a couple of select quotes from Rock as they appear in the magazine:

On the recording process for the new album:

Bob Rock: "We've really kind of changed our process in the way we're approaching this one, starting with kind of, like, where we've done it. The first half of the album we did last year, and what we did was we ended up renting out an army barrack, and we loaded in a lot of my equipment from my studio, my Neve stuff and microphones and other stuff, and we recorded there for two months, and we put down kind of 18 songs. Then METALLICA were building their kind of version of a studio — it's like a big warehouse with a control room in it, and they bought an SSL console. And we've been working ever since. It's definitely a different approach to the whole thing. It is very much a live feel, a live off-the-floor feel, and we're really concentrating on that."

On the new album's musical direction:

Bob Rock: "The funny thing is, like all great bands, it's, like, I guess really different, but to most people when they hear it, it's kind of, like, subtle changes. But they'll always sound like METALLICA and it's still based on that really heavy kind of stuff. It's different, but really it sounds like them."

(Thanks: The 4 Horsemen)