There's something that didn't seem right about these 3 songs that I couldn't put my finger on, and then it dawned on me: James Hetfield's voice has changed a lot as he's gotten older, and it just doesn't sound as good doing thrash-style stuff as it did in the 80s. It's not the songs themselves that are bad, it's like...if For Whom the Bell Tolls was a new song on Death Magnetic, it wouldn't sound as good as it did on Ride the Lightning.
The production is just so bad. The guitars are just awfully done, not enough power in it... As much as I love Rick Rubin, they should've went with someone else...
I don't know if it has anything to do with it, but I think they went old school and recorded as a band, instead of doing like guitar parts one time and then drums another.
Matt Sorum from Velvet Revolver (who's friends with Lars Ulrich) confirmed a while back that the basic tracks for Death Magnetic were being recorded live, straight-to-tape with no click tracks or anything. That pretty much means everything but the guitar solos, vocals, and any additional overdubs were all done at the same time.
So I heard they're doing cheap concerts in Berlin and London. Anyone here going? Ticket's are really cheap. $10, I guess?
I thought albums were released on Tuesdays? This thing supposed to be released on the 12th, which is a Friday. How the hell does that work?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YQvD....net/news.aspx?mode=Article&newsitemID=103780 30 second clips of all 10 songs from the album, originally on WalMart's store page and now on YouTube. All sound like pretty much vintage Metallica, with the exception being "Unforgiven III", which has piano and horns in the 30 second clip, thus making it the most anticipated song on my list for the rest of the year.
The studio recording of Cyanide is out there. Its a lot better than the live copy thats been floating around.
Entire album is out for free, courtesy of the French. And it blows everything released this year out of the water. It slots in right between "...And Justice for All" and "The Black Album". Wow.