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Rating: Who would have expected it!!!!!!!!!
I have to be honest, until about a month ago, I was very skeptical about this "Death Magnetic." To me, there were only two possibilities: either a sort of Black Album part 2 just to fool and please the old-school fans, or in the worst case, a revisited and corrected "St.Anger" with some solos thrown in and better production. But I have to admit, I was wrong, damn, how wrong I was!!!!!
With this album, the rediscovered Four Horsemen ride high again on the treacherous paths of Thrash Metal, paths they themselves traced a quarter of a century ago, only to abandon them for much more lucrative routes, but like every prodigal son returns home, so the Metallica return to what is their natural home, Metal!!
But enough chit-chat, let's talk about "Death Magnetic". After countless listens, I am absolutely convinced that we are facing the best Metallica album since "And Justice For All". Yes, you heard right; for me, "Death Magnetic" is better than the infamous "Black Album", which I never considered more than a good album. It always seemed like the classic album that a band releases before breaking up. After playing cowboys throughout the '90s and causing millions of fans to cry out in pain and anger with the formless and senseless garbage of "St.Anger", Metallica are back to business, and by business, I mean solid riffs, solos, and tempo changes. Who knows what would come out if instead of Lars Ulrich, there was Dave Lombardo or Gene Hoglan, but history isn't made with "ifs", we have Lars, and let's keep him.
The initial trio is absolutely terrifying: "That Was Just Your Life", "The End Of The Line", and "Broken Beat And Scarred" will literally glue you to your seat like in the good old days of "Battery", "Master Of Puppets", "Fight Fire With Fire", or "Creepin' Death"!! The first one is an excellent opening track, powerful and anthemic just right, with a solo by Hammett that wants to let us know that he is there and has no intention of holding back, and we already have a new classic that will wreak havoc live. The second opens with a riff we already knew... it's the riff from "The New Song" also known as "Death Is Not The End", but as lackluster and inconclusive that was, "The End Of The Line" is exhilarating, running like a train except for a brief slowdown towards the end preluding to the final explosion. "Broken Beat And Scarred" is characterized by Bay Area Sound harmonies, the pace might remind one of "Harvester Of Sorrow" with a lyric repeating "You rise, you fall, you're down and you rise again,
What don't kill ya makes you more strong" and it's the best exemplification of Metallica's story for the past 8 years. What hasn't killed them has made them stronger, and this album is the clear demonstration of that!!! After the initial burst, the pace slows a bit with "The Day That Never Comes", the first single and first video (set during the Iraq war, with an evident intention to pose as an "heir" to One), the most old school so far with the classic slow-fast pace that characterized "Fade To Black", "Welcome Home Sanitarium" and the same "One", with an instrumental finale that's a real adrenaline rush. We return to hitting hard with "All Nightmare Long", the fastest and harshest, with a chorus that embeds itself in your head and a solo that takes no prisoners, "Cyianide" is instead the most modern, more influenced by the recent choices of our Guys, in the sense that if they had made "St.Anger" with their brains instead of their asses, it might be like this, and it wouldn't be bad at all!!!
Then we come to the long-awaited "The Unforgiven III", the piano intro seems to really originate from the best production of Maestro Morricone, creating an atmosphere that will develop into a ballad where James puts his all into it with unexpected pathos that will rise like a tide, culminating in a melodic solo echoing all the magnificence of a band that knows when to hit hard but also when to gently caress. With "The Judas Kiss" and "My Apocalypse" they close with explosions and blows (when they will be played live), two Thrash songs that we simply thought we could only listen to by dusting off the band's very early works, and yet... we are in the realms of "Damage Inc." and "Dyers Eve", so to speak. But the end cannot yet be written, because between these two giants we find, or rather rediscover, an instrumental track, "Suicide And Redemption", epic and spectacular but unable to reach the heights of "The Call Of Ktulu", "Orion", and "To Live Is To Die", as behind those masterpieces stood a certain Cliff Burton... who perhaps from up there listening to this new labor of his former companions has nodded in approval!!!!!
In conclusion, an excellent work from a band that too many (rightly) had given up for dead and buried, but that shows that sometimes masters know how to land unexpected blows, remember Judas Priest when "Painkiller" came out???? there you go........
If we consider that by the end of the year, new albums from Cynic, Mastodon, Nevermore, Necrophagist, and perhaps Slayer will be released, adding to "Death Magnetic", "The Formation Of Damnation", "Obzen", and "Watershed", I'd say this metallic year has been excellent and will still hold very pleasant surprises before it comes to an end!!!!!!!!!
Tracklist Lyrics and Videos
01 That Was Just Your Life (05:04)
Like A Siren In My Head That Always
Threatens To Repeat
Like A Blind Man That Is Strapped
Into The Speeding Driver’s Seat
Like A Face
That Learns To Speak
When All It Knew Was How To Bite
Like A Misery That Keeps Me Focused
Though I’ve Gone Astray
Like An Endless Nightmare That
I Must Awaken From Each Day
Like Conviction
A Premonition
Not Worthy Of
So I Deny
I Deny
I Blind My Eyes
And Try To Force It All Into Place
I Stitch Them Up
See Not My Fall From Grace
I Blind My Eyes
I Hide And Feel It Passing Me By
I Open Just In Time To Say Goodbye
Almost Like Your Life
Almost Like Your Endless Fight
Curse The Day Is Long
Realize You Don’t Belong
Disconnect Somehow
Never Stop The Bleeding Now
Almost Like Your Fight
And There It Went
Almost Like Your Life
Like A Wound That Keeps On Bleeding
To Remind Me Not To Think
Like A Raging River Drowning When
I Only Need A Drink
Like A Poison
That I Swallow
But I Want The World To Die
Like A Release From Prison
That I Didn’t Know I Was In
Like A Fight To Live The Past I Prayed
To Leave
From Way Back Then
Like A General
Without A Mission
Until The War Will Start Again
Start Again
I Blind My Eyes
And Try To Force It All Into Place
I Stitch Them Up
See Not My Fall From Grace
I Blind My Eyes
I Hide And Feel It Passing Me By
I Open Just In Time To Say Goodbye
[Solo]
Like A Touch From Hell To Feel How Hot
That It Can Get If You Get Caught
Like A Strike From Heaven Turns That Key
And Brings You Straight Down To Your Knees
Like A Touch From Hell To Feel How Hot
That It Can Get If You Get Caught
Like A Strike From Heaven To Reprieve
That Brings You Straight Down To Your Knees
Almost Like Your Life
Almost Like Your Endless Fight
Curse The Day Is Long
Realize You Don’t Belong
Disconnect Somehow
Never Stop The Bleeding Now
Almost Like Your Fight
And There It Went
Almost Like Your Life
That Was Just Your Life.
03 Broken, Beat & Scarred (04:02)
You rise.
You fall.
You’re down, then you rise again.
What don’t kill you make you more strong.
You rise.
You fall
You're down, then you rise again.
What don’t kill you make you more strong.
Rise, fall, down, rise again
What don’t kill you make you more strong.
Rise, fall, down, rise again
What don’t kill you make you more strong....
Through black days
Through black nights
Through pitch black insides
Breaking your teeth on the hard life comin’.
Show... your... scars.
Cutting your feet on the hard earth runnin’.
Show... your... scars.
Breaking your life, broken, beat and scarred
But we die hard.
The dawn,
The death,
The fight to the final breath.
What don’t kill you make you more strong.
The dawn,
The death,
The fight to the final breath.
What don’t kill you make you more strong.
Dawn, death, fight, final breath.
What don’t kill you make you more strong.
Dawn, death, fight, final breath.
What don’t kill you make you more strong.
They scratch me
They scrape me
They cut and rape me
Breaking your teeth on the hard life comin’.
Show... your... scars.
Cutting your feet on the hard earth runnin’.
Show... your... scars.
Breaking your life, broken, beat and scarred
But we die hard
[Solo]
Breaking your teeth on the hard life comin’.
Show... your... scars.
Cutting your feet on the hard earth runnin’.
Show... your... scars.
Bleeding your soul in a hard luck story.
Show... your... scars.
Spilling your blood in the hot sun’s glory.
Show... your... scars.
Breaking your life, broken, beat and scarred
We die hard.
We die hard.
We die hard.
05 All Nightmare Long (06:00)
Luck. Runs. Out.
Crawl from the wreckage one more time.
Horrific memory twists the mind.
Dark, rutted, cold and hard to turn.
Path of destruction feel it burn.
Still life… incarnation.
Still life… infamy.
Hallucination. Heresy.
Still you run, what’s to come, what’s to be?
Cause we hunt you down without mercy
Hunt you down all nightmare long
Feel us breathe upon your face
Feel us shift, every move we trace
Hunt you down without mercy
Hunt you down all nightmare long
Yeah!
Luck. Runs. Out.
You crawl back in,
But your luck runs out.
Luck. Runs. Out.
The light that is not light is here
To flush you out with your own fear
You hide, you hide but will be found
Release your cript without a sound
Still life… immolation.
Still life… infamy.
Hallucination. Heresy.
Still you run, what’s to come, what’s to be?
Cause we hunt you down without mercy
Hunt you down all nightmare long
Feel us breathe upon your face
Feel us shift, every move we trace
Hunt you down without mercy
Hunt you down all nightmare long
Yeah!
Luck. Runs. Out.
You crawl back in, but your luck runs out.
1, 2, 3, GO!!!
Then you crawl back in,
Into your obsession.
Never to return.
This is your confession.
Hunt you down without mercy
Hunt you down all nightmare long
Feel us breathe upon your face
Feel us shift, every move we trace
Hunt you down without mercy
Hunt you down all nightmare long
Yeah!
Luck. Runs. Out.
You crawl back in, but your luck runs out.
Your luck runs out.
06 Cyanide (03:42)
Sleep and dream of this
Death angel's kiss
Brings final bliss
Come believe me!
Empty they say
Death, won't you let me stay?
Empty they say
Death, hear me call your name?
Oh, call your name!
Suicide, I've already died
You're just the funeral I've been waiting for
Cyanide, living dead inside
Break this empty shell for ever more
Wait, wait patiently
Your death-black wings
Unfolding sleep
Spreading on me
Empty they say
Death, won't you let me stay?
Empty they say
Death, hear me call your name
Oh, call your name!
Suicide, I've already died
You're just the funeral I've been waiting for
Cyanide, living dead inside
Break this empty shell for ever more
Say, is that rain or are they tears?
That stained your concrete face for years
The crying, weeping, shedding strife
Year after year, life after life
A narrow freshly broken ground
A concrete angel laid right down
Upon the grave which swallows fast
It's peace at last
Oh, peace at last
Empty they say
Death, won't you let me stay?
Empty they say
Death, hear me call your name
Oh, call your name
Suicide, I've already died
You're just the funeral I've been waiting for
Cyanide, living dead inside
Break this empty shell for ever more
Forevermore!
Forevermore!
It's just the funeral I've been waiting for!
08 The Judas Kiss (05:39)
When the world has turned its back
When the days have turned pitch black
When the fear abducts your tongue
When the fire's dead and gone
So what now?
Where do I head?
When you think it's all said and done
When you are the ostracized
Selfish ridden dead goodbyes
Twisting of the tourniquet
When the pieces never fit
So what now?
Where do I head?
When you think it's all said and done
Bow down
Sell your soul to me
I will set you free
Pacify your demons
Bow down
Surrender unto me
Submit infectiously
Sanctify your demons
Into abyss
You don't exist
Cannot resist
The Judas Kiss
When the storm has blacked your sky
Intuition crucify
When the ego strips your reign
Assassinate the living flame
So what now?
Where do I head?
When you think it's all said and done
Venom of a life insane
Bites into your fragile vein
Internalize and decimate
Patronize and complicate
So what now?
Where do I head?
When you think it's all said and done
Bow down
Sell your soul to me
I will set you free
Pacify your demons
Bow down
Surrender unto me
Submit infectiously
Sanctify your demons
Into abyss
You don't exist
Cannot resist
The Judas Kiss
Judas lives, recite this vow
I've become your new God now
Followed you from dawn of time
Whispered thoughts into your mind
Watched your towers hit the ground
Lured your children never found
Helped your kings abuse their crown
In the heart of feeble man
Plant the seed of my own plan
The strong and powerful will fall
Find a piece of me in all.....
Inside you all,
So, bow down
Sell your soul to me
I will set you free
Pacify your demons
Bow down
Surrender unto me
Submit infectiously
Sanctify your demons
Into abyss
You don't exist
Cannot resist
The Judas Kiss
10 My Apocalypse (04:09)
Claustrophobic
Crawl out of this skin
Heart explosive
Reach in, pull that pin
Fear thy name: extermination
Desecrating hail of fire
So we cross that line
Into the grips
Total eclipse
Suffer unto my apocalypse
Deadly vision
Prophecy reveal
Death magnetic
Pulling closer still
Fear thy name: annihilation
Desolating hail of fire
So we cross that line
Into the grips
Total eclipse
Suffer unto my apocalypse
My apocalypse
Go
Crushing metal, ripping skin.
Tossing body, mannequin.
Spilling blood, bleeding gas.
Mangled flesh, snapping spine.
Dripping bloody valentine.
Shatter face, spitting glass.
Split apart
Split apart
Split apart
Spit
Spit it out.
What makes me drift a little bit closer?
Dead man takes the steering wheel.
What makes me know it’s time to cross over?
Born to repeat until I feel.
See through the skin, bones they all rattle.
Future and past, they disagree.
Flesh falls away, bones they all shatter.
I start to see the end. In. Me.
See the end in me.
Claustrophobic
Crawl out of this skin
Heart explosive
Reach in, pull that pin
Violate, annihilate
All wounds unto my eyes
Obliterate, exterminate
As life itself denied
Fear thy name as hell awakens
Destiny inhale the fire
But we’ve crossed that line
Into the grips
Total eclipse
Suffer unto my apocalypse
Tyrant awaken my apocalypse.
Demon awaken my apocalypse.
Heaven awaken my apocalypse.
Suffer forever my apocalypse.
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Other reviews
By farmit
"Death Magnetic would undoubtedly win the Grammy for the most talked-about album ever."
"Welcome back, Metallica!"
By Anatas
"They should have titled the album 'Jamescantameglio' instead of 'Death Magnetic.'"
"'The Unforgiven III' sounds really bad, it's ugly, pathetic, pitiful."
By progandrea
"Death Magnetic shows that a new golden age for Metallica is impossible."
"All nightmare long' is the song that shows how Metallica, especially Hetfield, can still give a lot."
By Descanting
"Robert Trujillo represents one of the two main strengths of the work; incidentally, the other is the rhythm guitar."
"If the entire CD had been at the level of 'The Judas' Kiss,' one might have even been moved by such well-crafted metal in these dark years for the genre."
By Rabbia88
Many of the solos on this CD are poorly played or lack imagination, and James’ voice... is just too high and not very suited to this type of music.
Not a complete flop like 'St Anger', not as poor as 'Reload', but still too little, too little.
