[Originally posted on Facebook: 11/18/2016]

So I’ve gone through all of Metallica’s newest album Hardwired… to Self-Destruct, and seeing as how Metallica is my favorite band, I’m gonna give it a review.

So…. Top / Most Favorite 3:

• 1. Here Comes Revenge
• 2. Spit out the Bone
• 3. Halo on Fire*

Honorable Mention

• 4. Atlas, Rise!

Pros: This was a phenomenal album, the mastering is miles ahead of Death Magnetic.

A personal favorite thing to me is the fact that Metallica have really embraced their Load / ReLoad era tones again, a ton of riffs throughout sound like they are straight out of those albums, frankenstein’d together with stuff from the Black Album and Death Magnetic.

Also Kirk’s solos sound like they have more personality this time around, and less like on Death Magnetic where it felt like they told him “And……..play really fast like Kerry King”

I also really like the art for it, in true Metallica fashion, they didn’t repeat themselves, and the new logo, which has that cracked *static* look, looks really cool.

Bottom / Least Favorite 3:

• 1. ManUnkind
• 2. Now that we’re Dead
• 3. Dream No More

Cons: Oh lord, The top 2 worst things about this album is 1. Lar’s Drumming, and 2. James’ Song writing

First lets talk about Lars, he does so *little* on this album that’s memorable that it’s getting to the point where you could program a Drum Machine to play his parts, and the thing is? I’m not one of those “80’s Metallica or no Metallica” people. My favorite albums are Load and ReLoad, so I grew up in the era of Lars toning it down, but even in the 90’s, he didn’t have to play fast to be memorable, Look at “Wherever I May Roam”, “Sad but True”, “2 X 4” or hell even “Bad Seed”, all of which HAVE super simple drum openings or beats, but it’s the little fills in between and the right accents that made them iconic. On Hardwired, Lars is basically the little drummer boy, he uses the snare more as a crutch then as an asset. Super fast section? Snare fill, Guitars doing semi-fill section at the end of a bar? Snare follows the guitars, he’s not even using the bass drum half the time when he’s doing this, which is only even more highlighted by the fact he’s always turned himself up super high in the mixes (which is kinda cool as a drummer myself but still). Ultimately it works most of the time because there’s just so much more speed and aggression this time around, but come on Lars, you’ve got more originality then that in you.

2. James, this has really been something since S&M, I’m not sure *exactly* how the writing of Metallica songs go anymore, but he used to be so much more, well, coherent? I feel like progressively each album, James writes a song like looking at a newspaper or a magazine, there’s the front cover (the title of the song) and then whatever meandering or off point group of words he can string together go into the song, and it’s absolutely NEVER directed anywhere “THE GRASS IS GREEN, THE GROUND IS HARD, I LOVE YOU, FUCK THE SPORTS SCORE, DREAM NO MORE” I just wrote a third of the songs on Hardwired, and I know people go “Well if you’re so good, why don’t you do better?”, that’s not my biggest beef, JAMES CAN WRITE THAT WAY RIGHT NOW, That is 100% why my top 3 songs are what they are, they are the most coherent, on point songs with direction than any other songs on the album. It’s sad that it’s gotten to this point, but I don’t even expect them to be good anymore, I just ask for ONE song to be even remotely well put together, it’s why Unforgiven III is my favorite on Death Magnetic, because its one of their best written songs EVER and the only one on the album that doesn’t suffer from that writing style, if you can call that a style.

Overall Score: 8 / 10

I know I went on ad nauseam about my 2 most critical points of the album, but ultimately, this is Metallica coming full circle, true thrash riffs with ripping solos but also Black Album / Load era songs with some dark alternative tones.Oh and I don’t ever want to hear about Napster ever again, they literally uploaded the entire album FOR FREE on Youtube for fans before the release.

And with that, I’ll leave you with my favorite song off the album.

[New Note: My favorites have changed a bit. “Spit out the Bone” is forever number one, it’s the one song I always go back to and keep in my listening rotation. “Confusion” has also bumped out “Here Comes Revenge” though I’d say it’s still great. I’ll also knock “Dream No More” out of the least favorite. Upon more listens it grew on me significantly. Score stays the same.]