Review by MartinDavey87 for Metallica - 72 Seasons (2023)
Over 40 years into their careers, and it’s pretty likely that no band has ever taken more risks than Metallica. From the initial young phase of “proving yourself”, to becoming stadium rock stars, alternative rockers, eyeliner, orchestras, covers albums, a de-tuned nu metal trash can phase, movies, concert movies, collaborations, and having to again prove they can still play metal… one thing has become apparent with Metallica, they always seem most inspired when they’re trying new things.
News dropped on ’72 Seasons’ at the end of 2022, completely out of nowhere, when the band announced it and debuted a new music video. That video, ‘Lux Æterna’, sounded great. It was short and to the point. The 1983 thrash vibe was there, James’ vocals sounded fantastic, and the writing was polished. If the new album is like this, then count me in!
Sadly, it seems ‘Lux Æterna’ was a one-off, because all the other songs follow the same routine of Metallica’s last few albums, being massively bloated and overly long. The band pushes the physical CD format to its limit, as usual, with a staggering 77 minute duration of the same repetitive riff, over and over again. Every song repeats the same section for way too long, and it wears thin very fast. It worked great for Metallica in 1988, but since then, progressive metal has evolved and developed, and as much as I love these guys, the longer songs just don’t seem to favour them anymore.
It’s not terrible though, don’t get me wrong, there’s a few highlights here and there. ‘Lux Æterna’ is genuinely fantastic, and the title track does start off strong, but man, everything just feels so uninspired the longer the album goes on. The same riffs as before, the same lyrics (always involving words rhyming with cyanide), and guitarist Kirk Hammett sounds bored, almost as if each of his solos are forced and lazy. 2008’s ‘Death Magnetic’ was absolutely fantastic, and they just managed to finish milking that sound with 2016’s ‘Hardwired… to Self Destruct’, but it feels like with ‘72 Seasons’, they’re back to releasing just “another Metallica album”.
Don’t get me wrong, I love this band, I even think ‘St. Anger’ was a great album (see, they were inspired then and had something to prove), and I get that Metallica are at a point in their careers where they don’t need to prove anything to anyone and can do whatever they want. Sadly, I just don’t get much enjoyment from this album. Uninspired and way, way too long. Oh well, I’ll still be here supporting them regardless, I just hope whenever they do another album that there’ll be more on it that I can enjoy.