Last week was New Jersey week, tag team review, OverKill putting out a damn solid new album in Scorched, topped off nicely with Deonna Purrazzo and Steve Maclin winning their respective Impact Wrestling championship matches. But even with a geographical bias, don’t think I forgot about this album. Metallica is inarguably the largest metal band on Earth…even if they haven’t deserved that title for about 30 years. See this just goes to prove, if you put in a solid 10 years, you can coast the rest of the way.

I haven’t enjoyed an album from this band based on its musical merits since Load (1996) and that was more Bluesy Hard Rock than metal. So after trash can snares, wah pedal for days, only playing the pentatonic scale, skipping solos and being generally slow and boring since 2003…I have no hope for this album.

But hey, maybe I’ll be surprised; I doubt it…but maybe. Given the fact I’m not exactly hyped I think I’ll tweak how I do the reviews a bit since this is probably going to have a lot of long and drawn out pieces that make me want to bash my head into a wall.

Metallica is: James Hetfield (Rhythm Guitar & Lead Vocals), Kirk Hammett (Lead Guitar), Lar Ulrich (Drums), Rob Trujillo (Bass & Backing Vocals)

• Artist: Metallica
• Album: 72 Seasons (2023)
• Label: Blackened Records
• Total Track Time: 77: 14

They released the title track, and first track 72 Seasons as the last single before the album came out. Admittedly, it was almost okay, until it takes about 90 seconds to really start and then the whole song is just repetitive and boring. The only entertainment is how Lars’ cymbal taps remind me more of a coins stuck in the washing machine so it makes that annoying tinny sound for 7 minutes. So he upgraded from a trash can snare to about 35 cents stuck in the washing machine. A general criticism of this album is something they’ve been infamous for, more notably Post-St Anger, and that’s just long builds to nothing. Inflated intros, false endings where the beat essentially stops just to be brought back to life; and its not even a really great beat…its all mid tempo Dad Rock. The lyrics are also pretty inane honestly, its hard to believe that the same man who nearly made a song about SIDS, is going with this corny rhymes like grow and follow or fate and hate. These are like third grader spelling bee rhyme schemes.

This album also has a miserable consistency of tempo. Some people may find that a good thing, and in other albums I might agree. But when nearly every song is a crunchy mid tempo plod of down tuned bluesy licks I can’t help but start nodding off. I also never thought I’d say this about an old school Thrash band, but stop doing solos. Christ on a crutch, Kirk’s solos are terrible. Sleepwalk My Life Away is an accurate song for how this album feels, and not in a good way. They’re trying to capture a Black Sabbath kind of vibe but its just boring. You Must Burn! at least tries to be interesting, but its just a modification on the Sad But True riff. At least it tries and almost sounds like it belongs somewhere between Black Album era and Load. It took 25 minutes, but we finally have a tolerable song, though they do have one of those stupid staccato false finishes. If they ended it where the false finish was, it would’ve been much better (a lot like most wrestling matches in the last 15 years). They drag out a good 4 minute song, to being a schlog of a 7 minute song. If you’ve listened to any Metallica, you know they drag songs out, so this should surprise no one. If there was an award for turning 4 minute songs into 7+ minute wastes of time…Metallica would win that easily.

You know what, I did enjoy AJ’s little 3 highlight songs, so I think I’ll do that here. Assuming I can find three:

Lux Æterna – 3:25

I liked this song as soon as I heard it. It was their first single for the album and struck me as Hit the Lights but with more of a punk flavor. This does a great job at updating a Kill ‘Em All sound, making it unique, fun and not overstaying its welcome. It should also be pointed out, this is the shortest song on the entire album, the rest of the songs on the album are 4:30 or longer. Maybe people have said this album is like a fusion of Load and Kill ‘Em All, and this song encapsulates that nicely.

Chasing Light – 6:45

This feels like the inverse of The Unforgiven. Where Unforgiven talks about a boy who’s ignored, abused and torn down; this one takes more of a stance to help prop up the young boy to chase his light even through the darkness. So again, there’s some Black Album parallels in this album, but this song actually manages to stay fairly catchy throughout. Plus the chorus has a nice call and response section with the Lean on Me portion very easily being a crowd joins in situation. While its not overly profound, it does show the natural growth that comes with getting older and the understanding of needing assistance and motivation to get through the darkness.

Too Far Gone? – 4:33

Picks up the tempo a little with lyrics that focus more on isolation and potentially going to far in the distancing. Lyrically I suppose this is something people could be struggling with after the last few years the world has had, but they did something here that wasn’t present in the album leading up to it. They really turn into dual guitar harmonies and groove focused rock. So its still mid tempo, but its not that boring wannabe Black Sabbath that most of the album has been. Even Room of Mirrors gives us a small taste of a more rock oriented harmonic Metallica…and if they steered into that more, this would’ve been a better album.

So there we go, a few highlights, but this album is mostly what you expect after the last few albums. Its slow, plodding at times, solos that don’t seem to have any real soul and mid tempo throughout. If you are a mainstream fan and like their Black Album forward sound, you’ll probably be fine with this. The last song also being 11 minutes long is just dumb. I have nothing against good dynamic long songs like Octavarium by Dream Theater or Art of Life by X Japan. But when its not dynamic and more of this slower to mid tempo snore fest, I just can’t get behind that. Also I don’t want to hear anyone talk about their age as why they’re slower, we just did an OverKill review and they’re aggressive, last year’s Megadeth album The Sick, The Dying… and The Dead still had plenty of melodic thrash moments. Making excuses for whatever this album is, is purely fan bias and mental gymnastics.

There are some small glimmers of light, but for the most part this is mid or coma inducingly boring.

Final Judgment: 4.75/10