Metallica – "72 Seasons"

More like "77 Minutes", amirite guys?

Well, well, well. Look who finally decided to put out a new record!

The last time we left the world's biggest metal band – studio album-wise, at least – they might once again have been inspired by their superiors in Iron Maiden who just put out their first double studio album the year before. So Metallica did the same thing. And just like Maiden's "The Book of Souls" (2015), Metallica's "Hardwired… To Self-Destruct" (2016) was more ambitious than their creativity and technicality could cover, but overall quite enjoyable.

This time around, they've put out a far more homogenous effort. In fact, very homogenous. Musically, "72 Seasons" hails back to not just the roots of the band, but to the essence of heavy metal itself. As such, we're dealing with a record that doesn't have a lot of variation, but does have its heart in the right place.

Lead guitar-wise, Kirk Hammett, as has been noticed by quite a few people during these last 20-30 years, remains committed to his little tried-and-tested handful of variations of pentatonic wah-wah licks that he started messing around with around that ugly turn of the '90s. However, this one does see him, at times, shredding a bit more and incorporating the odd off-scale note here and there. So at least someone might've actually been practicing their instrument for a change.

To probably nobody's surprise, though, someone who still hasn't is Lars Ulrich, mostly playing that same mid-tempo chair-and-table 'Rock #1', always being just a bit ahead of the beat, and having the same relationship with dynamics and feeling as a blackout-drunk sailor might have with an expensive prostitute.

In fact, and as I've been saying for years, the band's technically strongest link remains Rob Trujillo, who, as is the ideal for a metal bassist, doesn't make himself noticed too much. But when he does, he's not only heavily on-point, tighter than his own goddamn drummer, but also delivers some badass drops and variations. No wonder they gave him a million dollars just to join the band.

More than anything else, though, "72 Seasons" really is a James Hetfield effort. It's no secret that ol' Jaymz has often been lyrically candid about his challenging personal life and background, not only on that horrid "St. Anger" ('03) mishap, but also in the "Unforgiven" trilogy, and even before on gems such as "Dyer's Eve" and "Fade To Black". And this time around, the whole shebang is thematically about the man's first 18 years on Earth. (Yeah, that title? Divide it by those four seasons.)

"72 Seasons" hails back to not just the roots of the band, but to the essence of heavy metal itself. As such, we're dealing with a record that doesn't have a lot of variation, but does have its heart in the right place.

You're not feeling that a whole lot, though. First and foremost, we're rocking out old-school here. We're talking a lot of simple, back-to-basics blues riffs over 4/4 time. And as such, Metallica are at their best when they're getting busy, like in the frenzied opening title track or in lead single "Lux Æterna", the latter sounding like something off of the band's '83 debut "Kill 'Em All" and featuring an impressive vocal effort from Hetfield. The same thing goes for second single "Screaming Suicide", its chorus as short as it's intense and memorable.

One interesting element is the big, dissonantly extended chords in "Crown of Barbed Wire", making for a nice, tensely manic atmosphere. However, this track also reveals one of the bigger issues, namely that aforementioned same fucking standard mid-tempo rock beat.

There are drummers in this world who make that work by incorporating some actual goddamn feeling – say, Phil Rudd or Nick Mason. Ulrich, however, is almost the antithesis to either, constantly bashing along with that same fucking energy level in every part of every song.

And along with this lack of dynamics, as has been pointed out by several listeners already, what also ends up killing the mood a bit is the length of the songs, most of them easily being at least a minute too long, if not more. I have not listened through "72 Seasons" in one sitting, and perhaps I never will. Because with a collective playing time of +77 minutes, it's just too damn long for its own good.

First and foremost, we're rocking out old-school here. We're talking a lot of simple, back-to-basics blues riffs over 4/4 time. And as such, Metallica are at their best when they're getting busy.

Things do pick up toward the ending with the thrashing "Room of Mirrors", though. In contrast to its verse, which is just a bit too melodic, this one features one of the record's most brutal choruses in which Hetfield describes being on stage: "So I stand here before you / You might judge / You might just bury me / Or you might set me free". And this is one of only few moments where those auto-biographical lyrics actually start to seem relevant to the project.

Alas, the +11-minute conclusion of "Inamorata", starting off with some nice, ungainly harmonies and a welcome half-time feel, could have been a grandiose, monolithic closer á la "The Outlaw Torn" from the world's most misunderstood hard rock album, "Load" ('96). But Ulrich passes that opportunity up because for some reason he has to kick the damn thing up in a double-time. The quiet, instrumental mid-section is kinda cool because it adds to both the song's and the entire album's dynamics. But once again, Ulrich has to ruin it all with a constant, loud hi-hat. (For Helvede da, Lars!) So the whole thing ends up being too fast for a longer song and too anticlimactic as an ending.

With "72 Seasons" rocking as it should for the most part, it's far from being a bad album. But Metallica could do much better by getting a producer who had much more influence on the band's songwriting and creative vision. Of course, seeing as how they're gonna sell millions of records no matter what they do, they might simply not care. But if they did, their outputs could end up living their potential as artistic creations rather than simple, but steady pieces of handicraft, as is the case here.

Rating: 4 out of 6

Genre: Heavy metal. (And no, kids, it's not thrash metal, because it's not fast and aggressive enough.)
Release date: 14/4/2023
Label: Blackened Recordings
Producer: Hetfield + Ulrich + Greg Fidelman