Rolling Stone Sits Down With METALLICA
“Rick [Rubin] said he wanted to make the definitive Metallica record,” says drummer Lars Ulrich, and all indications point to Rubin having accomplished his goal.
METALLICA are getting ready to release their follow-up to 2003’s much-maligned St. Anger, and the tunes that Rolling Stone’s David Fricke got to hear are old-school grinders featuring classic James Hetfield lyrics like “Hunt you down all nightmare long.”
This is the advice producer Rick Rubin gave Metallica over two years ago, as the band knuckled down to write its next album: "I said, 'Imagine you're not Metallica,'" Rubin recalls. "'You don't have any hits to play, and you have to come up with material to play in a battle of the bands. What do you sound like?'"
"It was the obvious thing — that we didn't see," says singer-guitarist James Hetfield. Rubin, a longtime friend and fan who was producing a Metallica album for the first time, "gave it a focus, instantly, with that statement."
Set for a September release on Warner Bros., Metallica's still-untitled new album is their first since 2003's St. Anger and their first with bassist Robert Trujillo, who joined in February of that year. It is also a stunning, overdue return to the shock and rush of the band's speed-metal monuments, 1984's Ride The Lightning and 1986's Master of Puppets. The 10 long tracks are all multi-riff blizzards with jolting rhythm swerves, while lead guitarist Kirk Hammett makes up for the no-solos asceticism of St. Anger with vintage bursts of cackling-hyena wah-wah.
Read more of Rolling Stone's report
here.
Accueil 