“I hope that all of you that make this hateful and reckless comments about Heath burn blissfully in hell. It’s so classy of you to take the plunge on him now that he can’t fight back… Really brave!
Yeah… Awesome…. Just fucking burn in hell. All of you, motherfuckers!” — Matilda, horseToothed.com commenter
Before I kick off today’s column, I’d like to go ahead and address this.
Matilda, we I at horseToothed.com am I total jackass. While I said that Heath should rest in peace, I think going over the top on praise for him just because the dumbfuck couldn’t figure out how to manage his medication correctly is absurd. Look, my 88 year old senile Grandmother had no problems taking her 600 pills a day, thanks to these little inventions that hold your pills for you and have the days of the week labeled on them. Heath was a victim of stupidity, plain and simple, and sucking his corpses cock by making over the top claims regarding his Lewis Black spasm ripoff Joker is, well, about as stupid as taking too many pills and killing yourself.
Now that we got that out of the way, on to the meat and potatoes of the column.
This past Friday I got to listen to Metallica’s upcomming new album. Having heard the hype about it, claims that they’ve returned to their roots, I was anxious to see what the fuss was about. Below is what I typed up while drinking heavily and listening to the album.
When we last left off, Metallica was busy man-cuddling with Ricky Martin…
Track 1 — That Was Just Your Life
Opens to some random open, 2, 3 riffs. Sounds like something everyone uses when they’re bored and warming up or cant think of anything to play during a jam session. I’ve written this lick several times in different formats.
Verse is so/so, pretty much a steady version of the intro.
Pre-Chorus is halftime version of the main riff with a palm muted e covering most of the ground.
Chorus sounds like it could have been thrown out of Justice For All… on a demo track.
Solo is complete garbage. Kirk used to be a run of the mill lead guitarist, now it sounds like he’s completely lost it. Wah-crutched and open string pedals makes it sounds like he’s been playing lead guitar for 9 or so months. Right now he’s probably just one step above Dave Mustaine in terms of lead playing.
Track 2 — The End of the Line
Odd, this was my thought when they put out the Black album, “This is the end of the line for Metallica.” Queue Rob Schneider to say “OH NO, WE SUCK AGAIN!”
Intro sounds like they’re making a concept album. This song could have just blended from the first track. Perhaps it’s made out of rejected riffs from “This Was Just Your Life”.
After the intro, they went directly into a Max Cavalera ripoff ride riff only “Load-ized”.
Verse sounds again like it was another riff that couldn’t cut it on Justice.
Quick note about Lars’ drumming. I constantly berate how bad he is, but now he’s just total garbage. I’m a better drummer than Lars and I’m probably not even the best drummer in my apartment complex. Any fills he does thrown in (which are few and far between) are mainly just quarter-note snare hits with a tom or two before the bass/crash.
WHOA, SOLO BLOWS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Here, want to write the solo for The End of the Line? First procreate. If you’ve already done so, have a cookie. Now, take said child when they’re about five, give them a guitar and a wah pedal, then record them for about 30 seconds. Print.
Track 3 — Broken, Beat and Scarred
Wow, about a minute into this song comes probably the best riff that Metallica has written in… jeez… 18 years? Not saying it’s a great riff, but a lot better than the rest of stuff they’ve just slept-walk through.
Drumming on the verse sounds like someone in drum lessons. Clueless snare hits at times just thrown in because coordination is not yet developed. He cant even keep good time on the symbol crashes or high hat, hits them just whenever the snare hits at times instead of keeping a good 4/4 time that just about any couple month drummer can accomplish.
Note about all the singing, while I love James’ voice live, he needs to remember that he’s not live while recording an album. This crap Bob Rock got him into needs to go.
Great, another garbage bridge followed by a solo guest spot by Kerry King. Wait, nope, thats just Kirk sucking again, but this time going above and beyond, stealing the annoying out of key whammy dives that Slayer popularized about a thousand years ago.
Track 4 — The Day That Never Comes
Oh boy, I knew this was coming. It’s Fade to Black meets The Unforgiven (wait, scratch that, they’re already the same a-c-g-e chord progressions). This is going to be every soft part of every Metallica song just bastardized into one song.
Hi, I’m Lars Ulrich. I know flohtingPoint is doing the write up on this, but I felt it pertinent to inform you that due to my neuro-syphillis, I no longer know how to put together a percussion section for an intro for a song. Random snare hits accompanied by high hat splashes is all you’ll get from me. Back to floh.
LOL! When it finally breaks down and goes into an actual rhythm, the drumming is almost a direct copy of how Lars plays Fade To Black, with the same base/snare/snare tail.
This song is very vanilla. While I wait for this to end, I’ll go ahead and throw in the fact that I noticed that one of the tracks on this album has a track named “The Unforgiven III”… They didn’t learn that part two blows?
Bridge straight out of Re-load. Vocal pattern too. I thought this album was supposed to be returning to the old stuff. WHOA, VOCALS SUCK ON THIS TOO. James needs to learn about vocal pitching I guess, it’s made pop stars famous for years.
Brief hint at the harmonizing guitars they did so well on Ride and Master. They should have exploited this much more, it was only done for like half a measure in two instances.
Solo is a Black Album special with the descending quick riffs coming straight from Kill Em All.
Track 5 — All Nightmare Long
Crappier version of Harvester of Sorrow intro, followed by staccato palm muted E.
Before the verse kicks in is another example of a good riff that they finally constructed. Metallica needs to remember how to palm mute…
Verse isn’t glued together very well. Feels very loose.
Chorus sounds pretty decent, I cant really place it on any album. I think it sounds ok.
I’m officially going the Buddy Ryan route and placing a bounty on anyone that knocks the wah out of Kirk. Everything he plays is complete crap. The solo is ended with the type of riffing you’d do live to signify the end of jacking around. Oh wait, this is a two parter solo… Great, more pull offs to an open string. This is great when used sparingly, but Kirk is officially not allowed to ever do this again.
Track 6 — Cyanide
They definitely slept through making this song. This is also a left over song from St Anger. I heard this in a demo. The riff they ride 0-0-12-9 on the e string is not even something I’d cut on an album. Maybe I expect too much out of this group, buy they are Metallica…
Awesome. You know what I was thinking this whole time? They really need a non-distorted mediocre section of this mediocre song. Wish granted!
Honestly, right now it sounds like those no-talent hacks The Deftones have more talent than Metallica. I’m literally ashamed of them.
Looks like a douche? Sure, but now he sounds like one too.
Track 7 — The Unforgiven III… Oh boy…
Starts off with a piano intro accompanied by a violin. Sounds like they’re trying to recreate the Ecstasy of Gold. Guitars kick in, ride for a bit, then the vocals immediately make you regret playing the track. The guitar part to go with the verse is just brutally unfitting.
Chorus doesn’t give much retribution at all. How did Rick Rubin not just go, “You know guys, I’m thinking this might be a bad idea…”
How many more tracks are on this thing? Jeez, three more?
Bridge enters and James annoys us with “Forgive me… Forgive me not….”
AHHHHHHHH WTF IS THIS SOLO INTRO!!!!!!!!!! Seriously? Have you never heard of a compressor? And this tone? Did you mic a 200 dollar ibanez through a crate 10 inch speaker?
Track 8 — The Judas Kiss
Lars’ toms sound like they were very badly mic’ed or perhaps he just used like 25 dollar bargain bin heads. Is that also a sharply tuned cow bell I hear? Oh jeez…
Ok, looks like track 9 is the instrumental, this one has words.
Aside from the “so what now…” part of this verse, it sounds like it’s a very sloppy construction of several black album verses. I think the tail of the verse adds good character though.
Chorus sounds like it was taken from several of these songs already on this album in terms of the main guitar riff, nothing catchy or special about this.
Solo starts off with a very slow, predictable wah progression, then goes into a crutch 12 bend that Kirk does when he’s clueless (ie: all the time). LMFAO @ the last 10 seconds of the first part of this solo. Reminds me of a Metalocalypse episode where their producer is helping Murderface put together his Planet Piss album and he’s yelling at him to make up lyrics while Murderface is screaming random garbage into the mic.
Prediction: The only tab books they sell for this album will be to clueless parents who have kids that play the guitar. I can picture a kid opening this on Christmas and saying, “****… why couldn’t it have been a sweater…”
Track 9 — Suicide & Redemption
Oh, well hello there Desperate Cry. I thought the guitar stabs here belonged on the Arise album.
Nice, when they finally break down into something decent, they have a pretty decent riff worthy of riding which kicks off with a back and forth slide, you’ll catch it.
This song sounds like if you took Steve Vai, gave him a lobotomy, then cut off his pinky and middle finger and told him to write an instrumental. Although I bet handi-Vai could do a bit better.
LOL @ the off time guitar 4 minutes into it. It’s odd because Kirk’s tools include a Roland VG-8, which is a midi processor and he could have fixed this pretty easy.
Yes, my friends, you have the masterful Call of Kutulu, the epic Orion, the great To Live is To Die and the ****tacular Suicide and Redemption. This song is almost 10 minutes long, which means is about 9 minutes overdue for an outro.
Track 10 — My Apocalypse
Finally, track 10. I’ve already heard this yesterday in the car on Sirius radio. This song is pretty much run of the mill, they should have actually opened the album with this song as it’s not much of a break from the rest of the boring tracks I’ve sat through.
Look, I’m drunk right now, this **** should sound great. I’ve sat and played complete garbage on my ESP before and loved it but this sounds like they repeatedly punched in the face while recording this. I cant believe Rick Rubin let this go through, I hold him to a higher level than this.
To Conclude!
This album sucks. If you’re a blind Metallica fan, or if you just have really crappy taste in music, feel free to toss this into your CD player, if not, save yourself the time.
See you in six years Metallica, when you put out your next steaming pile of ****.
PS: Cliff thinks you guys blow.
IM OUT!
