Those still wishing for a 50-minute Metallica album with an abundance of speedy thrash metal classics, well you all have those classic and timeless albums, therefore 72 Seasons will not be your cup of tea.  But I feel these last three Metallica albums, this album included, all showcase a band still rooted in writing excessively long albums, this is 77 minutes, but still reaching back to those times of yore and still capable of writing speedy thrash metal songs, alongside the groovier passages, with an exceptional production to boot.  If you’re a reader who really likes to hate on everything well feel free to hate on this mostly positive review.

I love Metallica, but I do not feel their discography is stellar.  I am not a fan of the Load, Reload, Lulu era material, at all.  I have a soft spot for St. Anger because they brought back the thrash, although the album is a mess of sorts.  The band has gone on record about what the album title means and I find that it may be too philosophical for some – something that really reminds me of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs.  I’m a pretty deep guy and my minor in college was Philosophy, but when I listen to metal, I really don’t want to ponder such issues.  I just want to slam dance, thrash and headbang as well as growl obscenities.

Metallica smartly opens the album with the title track.  Pretty cool use of cymbals with a punishing bass drum sound and some guitars before going right into the speedy thrash number, with a nice drum roll from Lars, before the groove erupts and take notice of that signature Metallica guitar crunch sound – it’s killer and James’ vocals are on point, still one of the most distinctive metal singers to this day.  The groove hits hard and then right back into the thrash attack with some excellent guitar riffing.  Lyrics are repetitive in nature and they’re done on purpose for live audiences to sing along – smart decision.  Kirk’s guitar soloing is absolutely killer on this song, which stretches from the thrash speed and traverses to the groove passage.  At over seven and a half minutes it’s more than double the amount of time of the title track off the last album.  However, this is an excellent opening song and it thrashes pretty fucking hard.  This needs to be their opener on their upcoming tours, no question.

Rather than get into the other songs, here and there and I will let’s ffwd to the last track – “Inamorata”.  The band’s longest song at over 11 minutes.  The song crawls, has some sludgy doom, the musicianship is excellent, James is very emotive….but dark lord almighty…11 minutes…come on fellas??  I really think this song could have been sliced and diced by several minutes, or maybe place it towards the middle of the album, or and I would have been the first to raise my hand in the Metallica board room – end 72 Seasons with a rip-roaring thrash song.  The song picks up some speed towards the end with a very “Orion” stylized sound, from their best album, Master of Puppets.

At the end of the day, folks, honestly I know the band has gone on record with the future and all, but in another 7 years, each band member will be in their late 60’s.  If they can still write original fast thrash songs at that time, then that rules, but 7 years is a long AF time and I really wish the band ended on a short and fast number.  They should have ended with the song prior to this long AF song and that is “Room of Mirrors”.  One of the band’s best thrash songs in over 30 years.  This is right up there with the album-ending songs from their previous two albums, with “My Apocalypse” and “Spit Out The Bone” being their best thrash songs since anything off AJFA, add this tune and the title track to this list.  What I love about “Room of Mirrors” is how it starts and then the isolated guitar riff begins which then goes into the thrash speed and Rob’s bass guitar slide provides an undercurrent of what’s been missing from prior Metallica albums over the years.  This moment feels like 1988 all over again.  It’s classic with many homages to the sounds on Master of Puppets – brilliant track-this ends like an album closer and should have been closing the album

Back to the rest of the review, enough of my blathering.  “Shadows Follow” has a great opening with a fast thrash beat and gets into some heavy groove moments.  This is a standout song on this album and played live at an arena is going to sound massive.  “Sleepwalk My Life Away” allows bassist Robert Trujillo to finally shine on a Metallica album because he is an excellent bassist.  The opening bass solo is killer and throughout the album, his bass is mixed in great.  Other than the bass moments this song really goes nowhere fast and at about 7 minutes is filler and not killer.

“Lux Æterna” was the band’s first single which dropped unannounced a few months back and is one of the stronger songs on the album.  Hetfield has went on record stating he wanted the album to be called this but was outvoted, ha ha.  Anyway, this is a standout song and kills from beginning to end.  With lyric homages to ‘Motorbreath” off their debut Kill ‘Em All, with Full speed or nothing as part of the chorus being sung is cheeky and clever.  The guitar solos, the mid-paced thrashiness and drums all are on point and Hetfield sounds great. This will be played for years to come as it’s heavy, fast, and most of all catchy.  “If Darkness Had a Son” is a cool song with the way the drums are plays, Lars does a nice job with the rolls and double bass moments.

The album cover is striking, but the band should have included their classic band logo and I guess the baby that escaped the crib was pissed that the album has too many long songs.  72 Seasons is a good Metallica album, not as good as the last 2, but this wipes the floor with the Load era, St. Anger and Black Album, and stool Lulu.  The band pulls from all their past era so yes there are some Load moments, with the bluesy southern groove type of crap that I just will never like.  I appreciate the band once again pulling from their thrash-era classic period.  Metallica still will not reign it in and at 77 minutes this album overcomes its welcome by 25 minutes.  Too many long songs, which go nowhere, and this is not a reflection of their musicianship, but it’s a lot to take in and the flow is not as cohesive as the last two albums.

The production is insanely killer, although the bass drum sound could have been slightly lowered.  The sound is massive but it’s a bit too loud at times.  Hetfield still sounds amazing, however, 7 years since the last album has taken a bit of a toll on his vim and vigor approach.  Listen to the songs on Hardwired… and you will hear his vintage shouting angry moments.  On 72 Seasons, with the thrash speeds, his vocals are a bit on the crooning, more melodic side.  He still has a bite to his tone, but as I said at 60 years old now, the years are catching up, but hot damn, back in ’83 if you would have told me he would still be singing and playing thrash metal I would say BS.

There’s a lot of catchiness on this album, but streamlined songs and some different song placements, I feel, would have made this album punch a lot harder.  This will sell by the buckets and prepare to see the baby on board color shirts (black and yellow) Metallica shirts infesting all of the mainstream media now.  If I were to place this on a point system I would give this a solid 7.  Good, with great moments, but I think, at this point in this career, this is as good as it will get with Metallica albums.  I predict there will be one more album before the band packs it in.

I opted for this new version and a few thoughts on the original album, my time era observations and this deluxe 3 cd reissue.  Master of Puppets, has some of the greatest thrash metal songs ever.  From opener, “Battery”, thrashing you all over the place to “Damage, Inc.” to everything in the middle, this is a perfect thrash album.  The band peaked at this album.  I remember my local record store, Slipped Disc Records posting their new releases in their window.  I had a turntable, but wanted the cassette.  After school I rushed to the store and the place was jam packed and I bought the cassette and threw it in my boom box and proceeded to walk around my neighborhood cranking the shit out of the cassette.  For that time period this was one of the best looking cassettes.  Multi-paneled outlay with lyrics and pictures.  This was the year record companies also started making clear, see through, cassettes-damn I still remember the plastic smell of these, when unwrapping the brand new cassettes.  I was in school when I found out about the passing of bassist Cliff Burton (RIP).  A bunch of us metalheads, began crying in class.  It was so tragic, but the band soldiered on.  Being a huge fan of the first Flotsam and Jetsam album-Doomsday for the Deceiver, Metallica getting Jason Newsted was a great choice.

Disc 1 is the original album newly remastered.  I have the 20 year old gold remaster and it’s probably worth some coin, but this new remaster is fuller.  “The Thing That Should Not Be”, always a heavy tune, is brought forth to such a heaving heaviness as you can hear the powerful rhythm section pummel the crap out of you.  A simplistic, yet fantastic song, sounds even heavier than before.  Really a great remastering job.  Disc 2 contains  demos, riffs, instrumentals of the songs eventually making their way onto the full-length.  These tracks are also remastered and honestly bore the piss out of me.  I really have no desire to go back to this disc again, since the final versions of the tunes are perfect and I really don’t want to hear isolated riffs, or instrumentals without vocals.  Although; Disc 2 has a 20 minute audio interview with Cliff Burton, while they were touring the US with Ozzy.  It is awesome.  The interviewer is quite young and sounds like he doesn’t know what the hell he is talking about as he constantly keeps mispronouncing the title for “Damage, Inc.” and Cliff continuously correcting him-it’s funny.   Disc 3 is made into a full 14-song concert.  Has Cliff for some of the live tracks and also Newsted for other tracks, when he replaced Cliff (RIP).  The tracks and song selections are great.  They could have thrown “Fight Fire With Fire”, on here, but whatever.  The sound is excellent.  Personally, I feel this should be disc 2 and disc 3 should have been a live dvd/blu-ray.  They dropped the ball on failing to do this.

The booklet is gorgeous.  Contains lyrics and tons of pictures and I remember a ton of the pics from magazines over 30 years ago.  Only gripe is no liners, from any of the band or anyone else for that matter.  Everything is housed in an ultra-chunky digipak.  The front cover is also embossed.  It’s a great reissue and shows that Master of Puppets is a timeless thrash metal classic.  Now the next remaster has to be …And Justice for All, and Metallica, put the bass guitar back in the fucking mix!

The Load and Reload albums were stinkers.  Going for a larger groove oriented sound, abandoning anything resembling thrash. It’s not until St. Anger when Metallica would go back to their thrash roots. The problem was the band was in strife, dealing with Hetfield’s alcohol addiction, the Some Kind of Monster movie, Bob Rocks’ continuing misguided influence Metallica were not musically focused. I still enjoy St. Anger. I  agree the songs needs to be chopped in half, way too long for their own good.  Furthermore there were NO guitar solos. Terrible. But the abysmal production of St. Anger was uncalled for, from a multi-million platinum selling band. From the horrific drum sound to no bass guitar to James’ cracking voice this album gains notoriety as the worst sounding metal album, right alongside Sodom’s god awful production of Obsessed by Cruelty.  But St. Anger was thrashing and catchy so I overlook some parts of this.

2008’s Death Magnetic was and is outstanding. Better production, although some clipping was evident and a return to their vintage sound has this and their Beyond Magnetic ep as some of the bands strongest material. Lulu, well, hmmm experimental is the word. Collaborating with Lou Reed the album is a debacle. Polarizing their entire fan base. I’ve met no one that likes the album.  These are their full length albums of original material. In order from best to worst and I’ll get to where Hardwired… To Self-Destruct fits in at the end of the review, once I finally get to the review: Master of Puppets, Kill ‘Em All, Ride the Lightening, ...and Justice for All, Death Magnetic, the Black album, St. Anger, Load, Reload, Lulu.

One of the smart moves was to release Hardwired… To Self-Destruct across 2 discs. The playing time is 76 minutes total, which is a long metal album. This preserves the production value of the material, very smart move, Metallica.  Songs range from the 3 minute mark to their trademark long songs. Metallica has been writing long songs since their classic 1983 debut Kill ‘Em All, so I’m used to it, but on certain albums the longer songs work, but on albums like St. Anger and this new one, not so much. Album opener “Hardwired” slays. Metallica could not have picked a better opening song. This needs to be their live opener on this tour. They waste little time, and get right to the thrash metal. Hetfield sounds outstanding.  Harnessing his vintage 80’s metal voice he sounds angry and pissed on this track. I love it.

Hammet’s got some solos, Lars throws in the double bass and thank god for Rob Trujillo. Yes Metallica hazed him on Death Magnetic by burying his bass guitar in the mix. On Hardwired… To Self-Destruct they grew up and the bass guitar is audible on the entire album. He’s always been a great bass player with his bass plucking with Suicidal Tendencies and Infectious Grooves.  This adds a much enhanced rhythm section, which has been sorely devoid for years.  Rob’s bass playing on this record destroys!  “Atlas, Rise!” is good. More mid-paced. The song is repetitive, yet I really enjoy this track.  “Moth into Flame” is another highlight on disc1. It has groove and killer riffing. Excellent solos and nice fast, thrash passages, which again harken back to their classic thrash metal classics from 30 years earlier. Hetfield mixed up his vocal tones and adds an extra layer of greatness to the track. I like the drumming from Lars on this track as well. Well done.  “Halo on Fire” is worth mentioning as it sounds like a leftover off the Black album, alongside some eerily similar moments to “Fade to Black”.  Long, moody, James laying down some melodic vocals with some simplistic musical arrangements.  At over 8 minutes the song is the longest on the entire album.  Some of the guitar melodies are nice with Kirk laying nice solos towards the end of the song, the tune picking up pace and Lars throwing in some double bass.  The entire song has future classic written all over it.  Truly a monster song.

Disc 2 opens with “Confusion”.  Decent track featuring some excellent guitar riffing at the 2.40 mark.  This song grooves throughout its 6+ minute length and more excellent soloing from Kirk.  “Here Comes Revenge” is groovy, heavy, excellent solos and nice signature time changes.  “Spit Out the Bone”, closes the album and is a terrific thrash metal closer.   Right up there with their earlier classics.  I love this song.  I just wish there were more of these moments.  The way Hetfield spits out his vox on this track and guitar riffing, I wanted more, but the album gets slogged down with a little too much groove for its own good.  The album needed some more true fast songs thrown in the mix, but too many songs groove and groove, slow, melodic and take a while to hit the Metallica riff.

This is more evident on Disc 2, which is not as strong as Disc 1.  Disc 2 focuses more on the heavy groove style and simpler song writing which was on the Black album.   With that being said, I still like Hardwired… To Self-Destruct alot.  Not as strong as Death Magnetic, but if I were to place this in their discography, I would put this right after  Death Magentic and before the Black album, because this is a really strong Metallica album with enough metal and thrash moments to keep you happy.  The production is excellent.  All the instruments breathe well and James’ vocals cutting through all the metal up your ass moments.  I’ve been cranking this non-stop recently.  Metallica even shot a video for every song, pretty wild and the videos are all excellent.

This deluxe edition has a bonus 3rd disc of b sides, covers and a live set.  This is the edition you want.  Hell, one of the live tracks is “Metal Militia”, one of their greatest Metallica songs ever.  At 80 minutes disc 3 is dynamite.  The original song “Lords of Summer”, on disc 3 is outstanding.  I love the chorus and some of the brooding melodic metal riffs, the faster thrash parts.  Excellent song, this should have been on disc 2, replacing one of the meh tunes, on that disc.    The booklet layout is exceptional, no complaints there.  Lyrics displayed beautifully and creatively and various pictures of the band members, altered, like on the album cover, all spread out across a massive digipak.    The combination of all 3 discs adds up to 3 hours-worth of music.  Well worth the extra skrilla on your part.

While not as good as Anthrax or Megadeth’s 2016 offerings, Hardwired… To Self-Destruct is a strong output from Metallica and one of my favorite albums for 2016.  I hope they don’t wait another 8 years to release a new album.  They will be into their 60’s and doubtful any fast thrash tunes would be on an album 8 years from now.  If you love Metallica, get this, despite some of my gripes it’s a pretty ripping and fun album.