On whether the songs are punchier, four or five minutes long:

"Well, the most of the intros are four to five minutes. I don't know — METALLICA and short songs just don't go that well together. But whereas 'St. Anger' was an exercise in over-pummelling the listener, these new songs echo some of our stuff from the '80s — long, epic journeys through different musical landscapes, heavier, but a lot more melodic."

METALLICA drummer Lars Ulrich recently spoke to Revolver magazine about the band's much-anticipated new album, tentatively due in the spring via Warner Bros. Records.

"This stuff is certainly a lot more dynamic and a lot more varied than the last couple of go-rounds," he said. "There's a lot of light and shade in these songs. There's heavy, fast, nutty stuff, and then there's some slowdowns and musical interludes. It's pretty different from 'St. Anger', and it's pretty different from the 'Load' stuff. This stuff is not the one-dimensional punch in the face that 'St. Anger' was. This is probably a little more like those couple of albums back there in the decade that begins with an '8.'"

When asked if the material represents a return to the "old school," Lars replied, "I hate to be that specific, because six months from now people are gonna go, 'What the fuck? Lars lied to us!' But it feels that way to me. It's been no secret that Rick [Rubin, producer] suggested to us that we use a couple of those records as reference points — that we spend some time kind of accessing that headspace. So when we would come to forks in the road, sometimes the exercise became, 'What would we have done at this point in 1985?'"

Alexhead wrote:Damn, no ReLoad retreads???

_Marcus_ wrote:I wonder if any of them are aware of how they for the last couple of years have become the biggest joke of the metal scene. I can't think of any major album release during 08 that I'm looking less forward to. Hell, I'd take that Chinese Democracy-suckfest any day of the week over the new Metallica, and I fucking hate GnR.

O-dot wrote:

Alexhead wrote:Damn, no ReLoad retreads???

"Gimme fuel, Gimme fire, Gimme that which I desire..."

Rubin has his work cut out for him, given how much Hetfield's voice has deteriorated in recent years.

On January 21st, 2008, but reported on February 11th, Metclub.com revealed, through pictures on it's Top secret section, that James Hetfield has begun recording vocals for the new record.

G4 wrote:This Metallica band.. they don't seem to understand the internet very well.

As you all (probably) know, in the heyday of Napster, the long-haired guitar fiddlers of Metallica took issue with fans downloading and sharing their songs on peer-to-peer sites. Rather than writing an angst-fueled heavy metal opus about how butt-hurt piracy makes them, Metallica sued Napster and won.

Now they're up to something like their old tricks again: Last Wednesday, Metallica invited several bloggers to a “listening party” for their upcoming album. Bloggers blog, so of course the sites run by the lucky music fans soon contained reviews of the six new Metallica songs they heard. Metallica did not like that at all and demanded the reviews be removed.


One site (The Quietus) says they were asked to pull their review in spite of not having signed an agreement not to talk about the record.

While we like the idea of aggro heavy metal dudes being unable to deal with internet clowns calling them "teh suck," all the reviews were positive anyway, so Metallica were just being a bunch of, well, b*tches--sending out lawyers to bother bloggers instead of banging groupies or smashing up hotel rooms like proper rock stars. (What the hell is wrong with modern rock stars anyway? Did you see that documentary about Metallica? How they were all whiny and going to therapy and dealing with sobriety and whatnot? Can you imagine a real rock star, like Keith Moon or Amy Winehouse, pulling that kind of weak-sauce stuff? No. You can't. But I digress.). Anyway, the reviews have been deleted and Metallica are presumably happy.

Good one, Metallica! Way to rock!

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.