METALLICA: Still Heavy After All These Years

June 12, 2008

David Fricke of RollingStone.com reports: This is the advice producer Rick Rubin gave METALLICA over two years ago, as the band knuckled down to write its next album: "I said, 'Imagine you're not METALLICA,'" Rubin recalls. "'You don't have any hits to play, and you have to come up with material to play in a battle of the bands. What do you sound like?'"

"It was the obvious thing that we didn't see," says singer-guitarist James Hetfield. Rubin, a longtime friend and fan who was producing a METALLICA album for the first time, "gave it a focus, instantly, with that statement."

Set for a September release on Warner Bros., METALLICA's still-untitled new album is their first since 2003's "St. Anger" and their first with bassist Robert Trujillo, who joined in February of that year. It is also a stunning, overdue return to the shock and rush of the band's speed-metal monuments, 1984's "Ride the Lightning" and 1986's "Master of Puppets". The 10 long tracks are all multi-riff blizzards with jolting rhythm swerves, while lead guitarist Kirk Hammett makes up for the no-solos asceticism of "St. Anger" with vintage bursts of cackling-hyena wah-wah.

Read the entire report at RollingStone.com.

Find more on

Prev More News Next

Comments Disclaimer And Information

BLABBERMOUTH.NET uses the Facebook Comments plugin to let people comment on content on the site using their Facebook account. The comments reside on Facebook servers and are not stored on BLABBERMOUTH.NET. To comment on a BLABBERMOUTH.NET story or review, you must be logged in to an active personal account on Facebook. Once you're logged in, you will be able to comment. User comments or postings do not reflect the viewpoint of BLABBERMOUTH.NET and BLABBERMOUTH.NET does not endorse, or guarantee the accuracy of, any user comment. To report spam or any abusive, obscene, defamatory, racist, homophobic or threatening comments, or anything that may violate any applicable laws, use the "Report to Facebook" and "Mark as spam" links that appear next to the comments themselves. To do so, click the downward arrow on the top-right corner of the Facebook comment (the arrow is invisible until you roll over it) and select the appropriate action. You can also send an e-mail to blabbermouthinbox(@)gmail.com with pertinent details. BLABBERMOUTH.NET reserves the right to "hide" comments that may be considered offensive, illegal or inappropriate and to "ban" users that violate the site's Terms Of Service. Hidden comments will still appear to the user and to the user's Facebook friends. If a new comment is published from a "banned" user or contains a blacklisted word, this comment will automatically have limited visibility (the "banned" user's comments will only be visible to the user and the user's Facebook friends).