Metallica: Some Kind Of Review – Is It Any Good?
This is not an ordinary review, but rather some kind of review of the newes Metallica album 72 Seasons. The most anticipated album of the year by the biggest metal band in the world, who has played on the most continents in the history of music, with the biggest possible promotional campaign before and after its release, arrived on streaming services and some shelves on April 14, 2023.
Before we begin our review, let’s see what our readers said about the album! We asked questions on our Facebook and Instagram pages and received the following responses:
“A feast for the ears. What they record, they also play live. That means a serious institution.”
“They’ve been smuggling for the last 30 years.”
“Quite a decent album. Just the way it should sound in 2023.”
“I was at the cinema yesterday and my first impression is that I like the album even though I expected the opposite. I preferred the second part and was pleasantly surprised that I liked the last song even though it lasts 11 minutes, and there are few long songs that I like. Personally, I liked the title track the least.”
“I listened to it twice and as far as I’m concerned, it’s a 4 to 5 on a scale of 1 to 10. I’ll probably listen to it again in the near future, so the rating will increase a bit. I don’t know, there’s everything they’ve done so far but mostly what they’ve been doing for the last 20 years or so. I listened to the singles they released before the album once or twice (I prefer the version where a single is released shortly before the album is released and other singles are released later while the tour and album sales are well underway, but these are different times), so those singles now fit better and sound better on the whole album. There are good riffs, the bass guitar grooves, the drums are more or less monotonous, but such are the songs, so it can’t be any different, the solos are totally without ideas, sometimes melodic and good, but nothing special. That’s it for me personally on the second ball… I can tell you that I’m listening to it for the third time now. It’s already 5 out of 10. The album needs time to settle.”
In addition to giving us their opinion on the 72 Seasons album, we also had a poll on Instagram for our readers to choose which of the band’s last three albums they liked the most. The result was as follows:
As you can see, our readers’ opinions are quite mixed, which was somewhat expected. On the other hand, this poll also shows a somewhat worrying picture when it comes to the new album… But that’s it for Junkyard Rock Stories readers. So, how did we see this album?
First of all, we did a surgically precise review of the albumometer type. Do you remember the Albumometer? Yes, it was a scheme we used to review albums. However, this time we opted for a simpler version, which, however, describes the state just as accurately, and it goes like this: we give 1 point for a song we like; 0.5 for one that is somewhere in between (meh); and finally, if we don’t like a song, it gets nothing. Very simple.
So when it comes to the 72 Seasons album, the highest possible score is 12/12, given that the album has 12 songs. After several listens, the scoring looks like this:
1. 72 Seasons 1
2. Shadows Follow 0
3. Screaming Suicide 0
4. Sleepwalk My Life Away 1
5. You Must Burn 0,5
6. Lux Æterna 1
7. Crown Of Barbed Wire 0,5
8. Chasing Light 0,5
9. If Darkness Had A Son 0
10. Too Far Gone? 1
11. Room Of Mirros 0
12. Inamorata 1
Ratings: 6,5/12
So the rating is 6.5 or about 54%, which, one could say, is the right rating for this album. At least as far as we’re concerned. And we see that people’s opinions are divided in general, so it’s still “somewhere there…”
Finally, here’s our brief opinion on Metallica’s album 72 Seasons.
The singles showed very well what to expect from the album. Even then, we talked about how the songs Screaming Suicide and If Darkness Had A Son were the most boring singles that could have been released from the most anticipated album of the year, and that those songs couldn’t fit on the Load and Reload albums, which they resemble in their sound. The other two singles, Lux Aæterna and 72 Seasons, improved things a bit, so we went into the album with “neither here nor there” situation. Of the rest, we would single out Too Far Gone because it’s the only one that has some refined melodic sensibility, and Sleepwalk My Life Away because the bass guitar is in the foreground, as is Inamorata, which has some good parts but is still unnecessarily long. The rest is all “meh” or totally missed.
The fact that someone is in their sixties and “still holding on, playing and rocking,” has absolutely no significance for us. And that’s one of the main arguments given by those who like this album or who are too big of fans of this group to find fault with them (fanboys). Simply put, there’s no “good for them, look how they are and still rocking,” and if that’s the only argument for something that is unimaginative, it repeats itself, with songs that are needlessly long, or where the lead guitarist after 50 years of playing can’t come up with a different solo, and so on and so forth… In that case, it’s time to retire, because there are a zillion other old and new groups that “rock” but actually have solid songs.
All in all, this is one of those albums that is forgettable after a week of it’s release. Somewhere on some mainstream rock/metal site, it was stated that this is Metallica’s best album since And Justice For All. Please, give me a break! This album is not even up to the level of the flawed Load and Reload, and the weak St. Anger surpasses it with several hits that 72 Seasons absolutely lacks. And that’s it.
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