Oh… So this blog is supposed to be about forward-thinking metal, and the first music talked about here is the new Metallica? This reader does not compute!

But of course the first entry here is about the new Metallica. Maybe the outcome of their ideas, hardships and visions haven’t always been as sugar-coated and great, as Little Lars and Big Man Hetfield over the years have hoped for – but being interesting, strangely compelling and pushing their own and their fans’ boundaries and expectations also counts for something, I guess.

So there… Metallica’s Hardwired… to Self-Destruct! (Absolutely silly and tendentious title, if you ask me, by the way…)

And yeah, yeah, yeah, I know… Reviews of Hardwired… to Self-Destruct have been all over the interwebz for more than a week now, how can I possibly have anything to say about this double platter, that hasn’t already been said?

Well, even though I have read my fair share of reviews of this – dare I say – fine, but inconsistent double outing, none of the reviewers I have stumbled upon seem to have listened to the album in quite the same way, as I soon found out made the most sense – to me at least.

What you have to do, is to listen to the two discs separately. If you just listen to the whole shebang (almost 80 minutes for crying out loud!) in one sitting, you will no doubt sooner or later suffer from metal fatigue. I know I did – and still do every time I try to.

First of all: The trick is to consider the first disc as one closed album, and then consider disc two to be nothing more than bonus tracks. If you attack Hardwired… to Self-Destruct this way, the two discs suddenly make a lot more sense.

The first six songs, the first disc – in my opinion the strongest streak of songs Metallica has released for 25 years – form a nicely structured album, which actually would have been enough of a release.

The second disc has some good and some mediocre songs, all of them meandering along in more or less the same midtempo swagger, before the absolutely ripping thrasher Spit Out The Bone closes of with an attitude. The problem is, disc two has no obvious structure.

Disc one is finely crafted, you get a kick in the teeth with Hardwired, you get melodies with Atlas, Rise! and Moth into Flame, interspersed with the heavy rumble of Now That We’re Dead and Dream No More (Uh… I love Chtulhu-themed metal…) before the three-part song Halo on Fire beautifully rounds of this six-pack of pure Metallica goodness.

Disc two is more like listening to the Garage Inc. albums or the Beyond Magnetic ep. The songs are ok overall, but they do not form a natural flow with a beginning, a middle part and an ending. Consequently disc two is not an album, but a collection of songs. Nothing more, nothing less.

So no, Hardwired… to Self-Destruct is no real double album. The album term obliges…

Anyway… Feel free to leave a comment on how you listen to this mastodon of a record.

Horns,