Metallica – Death Magnetic (2008)

Metallica was one of the first adult bands I ever got into. As a pre-teen, learning to play the guitar, Metallica's sharp guitar riffs and melodic solos appealed to me big time. When I entered my proper teenage years, my musical taste got a bit lighter and I left heavy metal music mostly aside for many years. Listening to metal as a young adult was considered very uncool as well. In the university, I was  in a relationship with someone who really liked metal music, which made me listen to more of it, not by choice. I have never liked really aggressive metal music and growl singing has always put me off. Metallica was pretty much as heavy as it got for me. My back then girlfriend realised this but wanted to encourage me to listen to heavier music. When Death Magnetic came out, I mentioned that it sounded quite good again and she bought it for me as a birthday or Christmas present.



Death Magnetic was something of a return for Metallica to its roots. After their commercially very successful Black album, Metallica started moving towards the mainstream and their albums got lighter and to be honest, worse. Death Magnetic sounded a lot more like ...And Justice for All, which was quite exciting after so many years. The songwriting is still not as strong as on the golden era of Metallica, but the sounds were closer to old Metallica and there is more complexity in the riffs. I definitely felt a bit nostalgic listening to it. Now I haven't really listened to this album that much anymore, but I can see its strengths even now.

The album starts with heartbeats and ominous clean electric guitars in That Was Just Your Life, which reminds me of one of Metallica's biggest hits, One. After the more melodic intro, the song goes into proper fast-tempo riff explosion. This song is followed by The End of the Line, which again sounds like many of the songs from ...And Justice for All. The machine gun riffs take turns with Rage Against the Machine like groovier riffs. The song is a bit too long for what it is, but generally the intensity is quite cool. Broken, Beat & Scarred has some interesting rhythm changes and it's another fine example of James Hetfield's amazing rhythm guitar abilities. I've always thought of him as a guitar player much more than a singer. The Day That Never Comes is a ballad that starts beautifully with intertwining melodic guitars. The songwriting is a bit cheesy and reminds me more of albums like Load than the good old Metallica, but this song is a nice slower song to breathe some air in the midst of all the fast-tempo machine gun guitars. All Nightmare Long has some excellent bass lines that almost remind me of Cliff Burton's amazing melodic bass lines. After the intro, the song goes into full blast riff explosion again. Cyanide uses almost psychedelic sounds in the midst of whipping rhythm guitars. Then its time for some nostalgia, at least in terms of a name. The Unforgiven III is the third Metallica song with the same name. The first one was found on the black album. This third version is also a ballad, but the sounds are a bit cheesy. Seems like Metallica was able to go back to their past in faster songs, but the ballads are not as good as on their old albums. The Judas Kiss has some galloping rhythm guitars and progressive rhythms. Suicide & Redemption has some heavy headbanger rhythms that remind me of Metallica in its heaviest. In this song you can just appreciate riffs with no real need for solos or vocals. The album ends with a rough song My Apocalypse, that features some very fast tempo riffs and psychedelic melodies.

I remember old Metallica music videos really well. They were playing on MTV all the time at the hight of my fanhood towards them in the early 90's. I haven't seen any new videos from them in a while, but I'm sure they still know how to make them. The video for All Nightmare Long features some Soviet scientists that discover an alien monster species that they start growing for war purposes. The species has some spores that are able to heal wounds and resurrect beings from death. This obviously leads to zombie soldiers and the end of the video is a proper zombie apocalypse.

I'm not really that keen on metal music anymore and I rarely feel like listening to it nowadays, but sometimes when I'm in the right mood, I really like listening to heavy riffs and dark melodies and at those times, Metallica is one of my go to bands. They have always been quite classy with their sounds and it's not as embarrassing as some of the other power metal bands I used to listen when I was a pre-teen.

Listen to the album on Spotify.