From my Facebook page last November:
Decided to watch all of the videos for the new Metallica album in sequence as on the album and here's what I came up with...
"Hardwired" - Damage, Inc. Hell yeah.
"Atlas, Rise!" - I love how the band is being ridiculous in the video. The song makes me think that Ride The Lightning and Master Of Puppets never existed and instead the band went right from NWOBHM worship of the debut directly into the bone-dry repeated riffs of And Justice For All. It goes on about a minute too long, but that's okay.
"Now That We're Dead" - Here the band seems to fall prey to the self-indulgence that marked the post-Black Album through St. Anger period with a major saving grace: They didn't forget the riff. And that's fucking important (and maybe the main reason that period is so forgettable).
The chunky guitar actually reminds me of shit-kicking Pepper Keenan-led Corrosion of Conformity.
Great Kirk Hammett solo.
"Moth Into Flame" - Kind of "Disposable Heroes" meets "Dyer's Eve" but slowed down about half the speed. Thin Lizzy vibe on the harmonized bridge, a very classic rock feel in general.
The chunky underneath rhythm really drives the song though in ways neither of those songs had though the structure remains. Possibly it's because the video director fixates on Robert Trujillo, relative to the other members, but I feel that he had a lot to do with this track's sound. It swings.
This sounds like what Rick Rubin wanted to get from the band on Death Magnetic, which while I remember thinking it was a return to form when I first got it, I haven't played it at all since.
Great chorus. It's stuck in my head since I first heard it.
"Dream No More" - Cthulhu returns, but promptly falls asleep, too bored to eat anyone. The dirgy plodder goes nowhere slow and I'm not fond of the video. Sad but true.
"Halo on Fire" - The band plays some "Fight Club" with an audience which is noticeably diverse in gender and race but lacks old people. The band spends the album trying to rekindle the days of yore but then ignores us geezers when it comes time to throw down! I guess we're us old farts aren't as pretty.
I spent a lot more time watching the storyline than I did listening to the track but that was as much for the fact it was the first real story video as it was the song was lamentably forgettable. I honestly don't recall a single thing about it, but I find myself pondering the meaning that the young woman was fighting all the same people she an into on the street.
Decent, thought-provoking video. I hope they don't do the song live.
"Confusion" - Twenty-five years ago (has it been that long?) "One" told the story of a male soldier sent off to war who came back with missing limbs. In today's modern time, the warrior is female and she has all her body parts intact, she's just losing her mind. And maybe that war is not on the battlefield but from the boardroom where she got groped one too many times at the copier.
It's a different time for sure.
The song has a really powerful video, easily the best so far. The song only goes on for 6:41 but it seems like one of those Justice-era tracks that go on forever. I'm not sure that's a good thing though the track doesn't suck, it just fails to match the intensity of the revived thrash of the album.
Sorry, but I have trouble being nostalgic for the moments when Metallica lost the plot and "Confusion" seems exactly like the late '80s Metallica where us old fans were still paying attention, but nervous.
Lars really takes control of this one with his unique, stilted style that so many cannot stand but I find refreshingly honest. Leave the double bass blast beats to the Dave Lombardo wannabes, he just throws out that tinny machine gun fill and ties together parts of songs that would seem a lot more clunky if someone who preferred technical ecstasy to feel was behind the kit.
"ManUNkind" - This has to be Kirk's baby, Aside from the fact that he is all over the track, flailing away, he seems to be the one member of the band who would push them in a direction that was simultaneously thought-provoking and yet also so simple.
He also seems the one guy in the band who might like black metal and I can identify with that. As someone hurtling towards fifty who grew up in a thrash underground, I think black metal is some of the most interesting shit around these days. Bands can be raw and primal or doomy and powerful or intricate and shoegazing all within the parameters of the genre, something thrash never could manage.
Metallica always wanted to escape the confines of thrash and even of metal itself, so I can imagine that they might feel some envy as the new generation of metal makers can ignore constraints (and also with a freedom that selling a bazillion albums actually makes tougher, which explains Load and Reload all too well) and actually gain appeal rather than lose it.
And it's cool to see a vintage Blasphemy shirt and Watain-like pigs head in a Metallica video, especially one that is quintessential Metallica in some ways, especially the way James Hetfield's voice harmonizes with the guitars when he sings "Quest to find" during the chorus.
"Here Comes Revenge" - If "Death Magnetic" was an older Metallica seeking out what inspired them to make "Kill 'Em All," this track is an even older Metallica seeking out what inspired them to do the Black Album.
I think the video is a way for James Hetfield to feel better about hunting.
"Am I Savage?" - Yes I am.
Here Metallica hark back to the ultimate metal influence upon all, Black Sabbath, and not just because of the Brontosaurian, slow-paced riffs, but also the lyrical side of the band, a modern-day "Paranoid" where after you're finished with your woman you're left all alone, selfish, and unsure of exactly who you are and what to do next.
My feminist wife (who, full disclosure, hates Metallica in all forms) saw something different in the video, the played-out tale of the misunderstood white dude whose personal battles with rage seem to profound to him while he votes for Trump and skates on privilege.
"Maybe I don't understand," she said dripping with sarcasm, "because I'm not savage."
Touche, honey.
"Murder One" - I miss Lemmy too.
"Spit Out the Bone" - The thrashing conclusion to the album envisions Dave Mustaine not getting kicked out of Metallica and instead staying with them and making an even more paranoid "Justice" by making it sound like "Countdown to Extinction."
This is especially evident with the way James Hetfield sings, pissed off spittle-laced anger at a world gone horribly wrong. This is actually indicative of the whole album. Hetfield's voice has led to a lot of people poking fun (check out the audio clips of nothing but several minutes of him saying "Yeah" spanning several decades for three minutes straight) and it is a bone of contention for us old fans who, frankly, find his vocal style to determine our shrug-style.
Not so much on this album and especially this album closer where he screams with righteous fury rather than calculatedly intoning the words. It's hard to describe, but he certainly was able to irritate the fuck out those of us who missed the way he sounded on "Ride The Lightning," and he's not pissing us off nearly as much this time around, and not at all here.
The video and song imagine a post-apocalyptic world where machine rules over man and spoiler alert: The machines win in the end.
In conclusion, Metallica has continued to be ambitious with "Hardwired... To Self-Destruct," only now that means allowing themselves to use their past as inspiration rather than something to run from.
It's not "Master Of Puppets." But that's okay, it's not "Reload" either. The band didn't rekindle time in the garage but at least tried to remember what it was like there and the result is a lot more genuine than "Death Magnetic," which in retrospect seems like the prototype for what the band wanted to do, they just weren't ready yet.
Now they are. And it's a pretty cool thing to witness, even if it's not as perfect as childhood memories.
two weeks pass...
one year passes...
two months pass...
two years pass...