Metallica - 72 Seasons (2023)^{Release ID: 43720}

I have not listened to a Metallica album the whole way through since the black album some thirty-two years ago. For a band who’s 80’s output is regarded as near flawless for me the peer and media charted decline of the band was unfathomable to comprehend, as release after release got shit-canned, perturbing me from wasting my time in bothering to find out for myself whether the criticism was justified. Snippets of albums found their way through to me still, Until It Sleeps, I Disappear, St. Anger and Frantic all underlining my choice to stay away as being more than justified. If anything, based on the coverage I have read, things have only gotten worse as time has gone on. Death Magnetic and Hardwired…to Self-Destruct being subject to particularly harsh derision and of course the Lulu collaboration attracting the most negative responses overall.

An internet acquaintance commented that 72 Seasons was the best thrash metal album of 2023 the other day. If I had taken that comment at even the basest of accuracy levels, I would have been mistaken in assuming 72 Seasons is even a thrash metal record. This is Youthanasia era Megadeth style heavy metal with some elements of well-played guitars hoping to rescue an otherwise below-average metal album. (For the record Youthanasia is a better record). The second part of that statement about this being the “best” release in the realm of thrash in a year that has seen an Enforced album as well as a Drain record to boot is equally if not more ridiculous than the mis-tagging suffered upon on 72 Seasons.

None of the above of course means that (when considered in isolation) 72 Seasons is a terrible record. If it was made by a band that did not have such a heritage in the world of metal, then it would perhaps be receiving less criticism. Fact is though that does not even sound like Metallica to my ears. Granted there have been many years that have passed since I last ventured into these waters, but Hetfield sounds nothing like he used to and indeed it is only Hammett’s trademark lead work that establishes any semblance of the band I remembered. I could go on about the drums, but Saxy has more than covered all relevant points on that front already in his review. The point I am getting to is that whilst 72 Seasons is not terrible overall, it remains little more than below-average in terms of songwriting prowess and rhythmical maturity – regardless of who plays on it.

Laboured song lengths that expose the obvious lack of ideas may be symptomatic of the issues with the band nowadays but even the shorter tracks such as Lux Aeterna offer little in the way of hope, seemingly just acting as stop-gaps between the longer tracks. The lack of control of the structure of Crown of Barbed Wire is frankly painful with the vocals seemingly crow-barred into a song that they were never actually written for. The unnecessary build on most tracks before they settle into anything vaguely resembling form is tiring, especially from a band who used to be able to do that so successfully back in the day. Even when offered the chance to go for the jugular (something else they could do superbly in their heyday) the band make a hash of the shorter offerings by muddling pace, tempo and arrangement into some hurried exit strategy so we can go back to another long-assed build on the next track.

Metallica in 2023 are indecisive, isolated in their own version of reality and completely unrecognisable as the force of music they so quickly became some forty years ago. For once the hype is correct and I have seemingly missed nothing during the last thirty years.

At what point during a musician’s career can we legitimately claim them to be a “legacy act”? I think that this conversation is far more confusing than it may initially seem because some artists can exist for as long, if not longer, than their more popular contemporaries and never get that special treatment. I had this conversation briefly back in 2020 when I discussed Terry Allen and Bob Dylan’s newest releases and I was generally more favourable to Dylan, even though I found the album less enjoyable than Just Like Moby Dick.

Testament and Metallica have a similar comparison in thrash metal; both have been around for well over three decades and yet one still demands attention when they release a new album, while the other silently releases consistently solid thrash metal records on a bi-annual basis. My history with Metallica has been complicated and I haven’t really discussed them much online because their album release cycle’s are abnormally long. After a very successful 1980s and more accessible 1990s, Metallica were ready to try something different in the 2000s. Enter St. Anger, an album loathed by most, but funnily has become more fascinating with each passing year for me. Here was a band who wanted to step outside of their comfort zone and attempt something closer to the popular trend at the time: nu metal, rather than staying in the comfy confines of dad rock/metal. And it isn’t like the band needed to do this after the success of the covers album Garage Inc. either. St. Anger did turn out to be garbage, but it was not a concept doomed from the start. So instead of developing this sound and trying for something that maintained the Metallica way, what did we get instead? Death Magnetic, a record that was so safe that Lars must have been wearing oven mitts to prevent blisters. It proved to me that Metallica didn’t actually care about the music they made, but rather the paycheck at the end. For me, Death Magnetic was the first time I had truly experienced a “selling out” moment.

It has been fifteen years since then and seven years since Hardwired…To Self-Destruct, which is a record that I almost ignored outright because of the promotional singles giving me the exact same visceral reaction to Death Magnetic. Perhaps this band achieved “legacy” status a long time ago and I missed it while I was in post-secondary and I would love nothing more than to bury the hatchet with Metallica. But along came 72 Seasons. So where do we go from here?

It’s fine. That’s the review. I feel like my intro had more heart and soul put into it than the last seventy-seven minutes that I spent listening to this album. But yeah, this late era Metallica album is trying everything in their power to replicate a sound that they mastered (pun not intended) and popularized almost four decades ago, even though thrash metal, and Metallica themselves are in a very different place than they were all those years ago.

Of course, when we say “replicate a sound”, we are not talking about the straight up thrashers like “Battery”, “Fight Fire With Fire”, and “Damage Inc.”, y'know, the iconic stuff. Instead, we have a collection that sounds like “Sad But True”, “Creeping Death” and “Enter Sandman” and yet somehow missing the feel those classic songs were able to create in spades.

And now I get to piss everyone off with one controversial hot take: Metallica songs were always drawn out and too long for their own sake. Looking back on classic tracks like “Whiplash”, “One”, and “Enter Sandman”, I can hear these songs going beyond what might have been acceptable on a Slayer or even a Megadeth album, especially during their intros. And while old songs vary in quality, on 72 Seasons, it’s actually quite simple. If you see a track with a runtime that exceeds six minutes, you already know that the first 60/90 seconds is going to be Metallica jamming out on that riff with very little variation. This is followed by the actual riff that each song is based on and then eventually James Hetfield enters with the first verse. The title track, “You Must Burn!”, “If Darkness Had a Son” all do this and it’s frustrating when the band prepares you for one thing, only to pull the curtain from your eyes and show you the “real” song.

And listen, I could point at the low hanging fruit and say “that’s why this album isn’t very good”, but at this point, the conversation surrounding it has been beaten to death so many times that it would be in poor taste on my part… and we all know I would never stoop that low right?

Lars Ulrich is a terrible drummer! I think what makes it so troubling is that there is absolutely zero rhythmic variety on 72 Seasons. The most exhausting part is on “Sleepwalk My Life Away” where the guitar riff is meant to be syncopated, but the percussion part cannot replicate that rhythmic deviation. An instance where a band does not play into the band's strengths and it sounds amateur. It’s no different when the band plays what’s meant to be a quarter-triplet and turns into a progressive rock time change. In addition, the mixing of Lars’ cymbals on this record is bad; like you can still hear the crash cymbals resonating well after initial contact even with the guitar riffing.

Furthermore, where is the stylistic variety on this album? Yeah it does have tempo variety, but nothing that resembles a ballad. The only clean guitar is during a bridge on the closer “Inamorata”. The band didn’t even attempt to write a song like “The Unforgiven” or “Fade to Black” and an album that is already long enough, is made even longer by not having that change of style, to make its heavier moments feel heavier.

At least the album has a bit more emphasis on the guitar solos than the last record did and despite the vocal melodies being unmemorable at best, James Hetfield is still a competent singer and the addition of vocal layering is nice for a band that has rarely used them in the past. The riffing on the record is okay in small doses, and while each of the six-plus-minute songs overstay their welcome, they do contain some good moments.

So, is Metallica a “legacy” act? Yes and I think that is an objective conclusion. So why am I so critical of it? Part of it may be the arrogance of its members, but I am more inclined to believe it is the fanbase that think this band can do no wrong. When James Hetfield even says that Metallica are average, you know something’s gone wrong between the band and the fans. As for 72 Seasons, James is right, this is average, even for a late era Metallica album. This playbook has been done before by the band post St. Anger and 72 Seasons sounds like it could have been released fifteen years ago.

Best Songs: 72 Seasons, You Must Burn!, Too Far Gone?