Illegal Foreign Object

One of the best things to ever happen to Metallica fans was when the band realized it was bigger than the entities to whom it pandered. I can go through the albums Load and Reload and pick out a half dozen songs I dig, but the fact remains that those albums are decidedly not “Metallica”. Shortsighted though it may be, it’s hard to get a fanbase to shift gears so drastically after you spent two decades watching you pummel the metal world into submission. As big as Metallica is, there was certainly a time when at least two of the band members felt incredibly small. That they also happened to be the de facto band leaders made things all the more chaotic. Go listen to St. Anger and tell me you don’t hear a band warring with its legacy. That album is a disjointed mess — it sounds like “the end” (it very nearly was).

The collective realization of who they were as a band during this time certainly didn’t manifest itself into instant classics — in fact, it almost tore Metallica to pieces. The result of the rebuild, a multi-year process fueled by therapy, rehab stints, and a lot of self-reflection, pulled the Metallica train back onto the tracks. The Rick Rubin-produced Death Magnetic gave fans a glimpse of a band reinvigorated in 2008. It bridged the gap to 2016’s double-disc offering Hardwired…To Self-Destruct — an album that can firmly stand alongside classic records like Ride The Lightning and the Black Album.

72 Seasons continues down the path set by the band’s previous two studio offerings. It’s heavy, emotional, and groovy — all the things you’ve come to expect from the best parts of post-thrash Metallica.

Where Hardwired…To Self-Destruct was more of a musical bludgeoning, 72 Seasons attempts to hit you in the mouth lyrically. While his words don’t always hit the mark, that James Hetfield is willing to “go there” is what truly matters most. By continuing to look inward, tackling issues unaddressed or unresolved from his past (like his struggles with addiction, abuse, and feelings of abandonment) James seems to have found some peace within himself. After decades of allowing his trauma to manifest into his “tough guy” exterior, it now sounds like he’s accepting of the idea that masking the hurt only feeds it. Still, I can’t help but wonder if he’s oversimplified his lyrics to make them more easily digestible. The hell he’s gone through to acquire and maintain his sobriety is well-documented, but I don’t necessarily feel that hell in his lyrics.

Still, 72 Seasons hits plenty hard. Songs like the title track and “You Must Burn!” are barn-burners — James sings his ass off on the former while bassist Robert Trujillo stomps like a Doc Marten-clad Mechagodzilla on the latter. “Shadows Follow” is Metallica-by-numbers (and I don’t mean that in a negative way), while “Room Of Mirrors” has that quintessential Lars Ulrich “gallop” from behind the drum kit. It’s arguably the best drumming of Lars’ career (which has led to plenty of debate over the possibility of some drum programming). Lead guitarist Kirk Hammett’s solo on “If Darkness Had A Son” is another highlight.

72 Seasons isn’t without its issues. The lead single “Lux Æterna” feels like a parody of a metal band more than an offering from the biggest metal band in history. There’s something Spinal Tap-like about the song. “Chasing Light” and “Too Far Gone?” needed self-editing. “Inamorata” is an 11-minute opus that is more than a little reminiscent of the band’s …And Justice For All era. The dual soloing from James and lead guitarist Kirk Hammett around the 6:50 mark is a beautiful nod to a bygone era of metal guitar godery, but the song sounds like the band could have made the same point in far less time.

Look, roughly half the time, 72 Seasons kicks all kinds of ass. The other half of the time, it sounds like a well-practiced band with a keen understanding of how they’re supposed to sound. I’m not saying the guys in Metallica gave anything less than their all on 72 Seasons — just that there’s less to tap into. These are extremely wealthy guys in their late-50s and early-60s, not guys sleeping on Anthrax’s floor and sharing a tin of baked beans between them — it would be immature of the listener to expect the band to lug around all the angry emotional baggage of their twenties and thirties. Still, much of 72 Seasons sounds like Metallica pretending to be Metallica. With that said, no one has ever been better at being the biggest and the baddest than the mighty Met.

Track List:

1. 72 Seasons 8/10
2. Shadows Follow 7/10
3. Screaming Suicide 6/10
4. Sleepwalk My Life Away 6/10
5. You Must Burn! 8/10
6. Lux Æterna 6/10
7. Crown Of Barbed Wire 7/10
8. Chasing Light 5/10
9. If Darkness Had A Son 5/10
10. Too Far Gone? 5/10
11. Room Of Mirrors 8/10
12. Inamorata 7/10

Grade: 65