COVER STORY
Metallica is still angry after all these years
Published: November 06, 2009, 12:30 am
Story tools:
More Photos
Share this story:
I liked the album cover. It really was as simple as that. Not so much the artwork on the front of the package, which depicted an electric chair with the album’s moniker, “Ride the Lightning,” displayed with an alarming lack of taste beneath it.
It was the four photographs on the flip side of the record jacket that hooked me. These guys looked the part—one of the guitarists had really cool long hair and was playing a Gibson Flying V in a freeze-framed moment of pure animated fury. The band’s name had the word “metal” in it, too, which in 1984, meant something to 16-year-old me.
Metallica with Volbeat and Lamb of God.
When: 7 p.m. Tuesday
Where: HSBC Arena
Tickets: $52-$69.50 (Tickets.com)
Acting on impulse—something I’ve failed to forget how to do, sadly—I bought the album, dropping a crumpled 10-spot (earned washing dishes at an Italian restaurant) on the counter of World Records in downtown Albany. The clerk, who was way too cool to like metal, offered an audible sniff as he cashed me out. I’m sure the Smiths debut album (or something like it) was blasting over the store’s stereo system, but I’d be having none of that, thanks, at least not for another year or two. Adolescence, mine anyway, required cool-looking guitars cranked through Marshall amps, or else Pink Floyd, the Doors, the Beatles and Rush. Anything in the middle was for pretentious punk fans and old people.
From the look of it, this Metallica band might turn out to be the American Iron Maiden. Not likely, but it was worth a shot.
I couldn’t wait to slap “Ride the Lightning” on my turntable, but when I did, I immediately wished I’d gone with the Marillion 12-inch import in lieu of the Metallica platter.
This, I was convinced, was pure garbage. Where was the melody? Why no progressive rock leanings or harmony guitars echoing Thin Lizzy and UFO?
This stuff sounded like lousy punk rock! I’d been had!
Enduring appeal
Painful as it is to admit, that was 25 years ago. Since then, Metallica—today, James Hetfield, Lars Ulrich, Kirk Hammett and Robert Trujillo—has proven itself to be the pre-eminent American heavy metal outfit of its time. And the band’s blend of the speed and attitude of hard-core punk with the histrionics of metal has become a wholly accepted, oft-echoed fusion.
The group has endured everything but being crushed by a life-sized stage-prop replica of Stonehenge— the death of bassist Cliff Burton, addiction, in-fighting, critical damnation, and perhaps worst of all, band therapy.
Yet somehow, as it prepares to invade a setting of past glories— HSBC Arena, where the band performs at 7 p. m. Tuesday—Metallica has lost very little to the ravages of 25 years on the road. Heavy metal has been kicked to the curb a half-dozen times during that period— by alternative rock, grunge and hip-hop, to name but a few. Metallica has lost focus intermittently, too, its members angering hard-core fans first by cutting their hair, then by scoring mega-platinum crossover success, even further by suing Napster, and almost fatally by releasing the “getting in touch with our feelings” documentary film “Some Kind of Monster.”
During that same period, I, like so many millions of others, fell beneath the band’s spell—though I still don’t fancy “Ride the Lightning” all that much.
The key to Metallica’s enduring appeal—an appeal that has transcended the initial fan base of acne-scarred, long-haired adolescent males in denim jackets and Motorhead T-shirts, and now includes headbangers in their 50s and first-timers still in high school —seems to mirror the continued resonance of heavy metal. As Jack Black so hilariously broke it down in the Tenacious D ditty “The Metal,” no matter how many flavors-of-the-month come along to “kill the metal,” invariably, “they failed/as they were stricken down/to the ground!”
Like metal itself, Metallica’s reputation is largely built upon live performance.
“I’ve seen Metallica in concert 10 times,” says Buffalo musician Ken Pruchnicki. “I was never disappointed. I saw them in the early ’80s in a bar, again when they opened for Ozzy Osbourne, the Monsters of Rock show with Guns ’N Roses at Rich Stadium. I saw them at the old Aud on the ‘Blind Justice’ tour, at HSBC Arena on the last tour, and at Darien Lake, too.
“Every show has been amazing. There is so much energy on the stage. In fact, Lars Ulrich is the drummer who made me want to become a drummer when I was just a kid, and to this day, he’s still a huge influence on my drumming,” Pruchnicki says.
Metal museum piece?
Last weekend, Metallica took part in the all-star gala/concert event honoring the 25th anniversary of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum, joining the likes of the Kinks’ Ray Davies, U2, Aretha Franklin, Lou Reed and Jeff Beck inside New York City’s Madison Square Garden. The band, which was inducted into the Hall of Fame in April, performed two songs with Lou Reed, the man considered by many to be one of the progenitors of alternative rock. Perhaps surprisingly, the world did not explode.
Following this strange but incredibly cool union, which included a raunchy take on “Sweet Jane” (check it out on YouTube), the band joined Ozzy Osbourne for a pair of classic Black Sabbath songs.
So is Metallica now part of the very establishment it has so long defined itself by standing in opposition to?
Nah. Listen to its new record, “Death Magnetic.” This does not sound like the work of four men in their late 40s who can’t wait to get out on the golf course with their rich buddies, or don a black tie to grovel at the feet of Jann Wenner.
Metallica is still angry after all these years. And that anger is channeled through some of the most dense, cacophonous, complex and aggressive heavy rock ever laid to tape.
Still, not every fan has been pleased with the band’s evolution.
“I’ve seen them several times through their different periods as a band,” says Kent Malmberg, a former Western New Yorker now living in California. “It has all been good, but it was great in the early days. Interestingly, their music and live shows have closely mirrored their choice of hairstyles and clothing during any given period. In the early days of ‘Kill Em All’ and ‘Master of Puppets,’ the band had the ‘just woke up, slept in these clothes last night’ look, and it was mirrored by aggressive, in-your-face, ‘I don’t care what you think’ music. The turning point was ‘The Black Album,’ which presented more subdued and mom-friendly music; by then, the band had hairstyles more like a Super-Cuts mullet, and a style of dress more like tailored Merry-Go-Round clothing.
“They are making an attempt to come full circle and return to the heaviness and extreme beats-per-minute tempos of the early stuff, which is what all true Metallica fans want,” Malmberg continues. “These heavy pieces are always the songs at every live show that are the real crowd pleasers.
“But I’m sure [power-ballad] ‘Nothing Else Matters’ will please the soccer moms in the crowd on this tour.”
Ouch.
Return to form
Since it launched the “Death Magnetic” tour in October 2008, Metallica seems to be riding, if not “the lightning,” then at least a wave of considerable heft. Gone is the clenched fist introspection of the poorly received “St. Anger.” Gone, too, the perhaps overly eager efforts to assimilate classic rock tropes that marked its latter ’90s work. For the first time since it released the record now commonly referred to as “The Black Album” in 1991, Metallica seems wholly at ease with itself, comfortable in its own well-inked skin.
That means there is a renewed sense of menacing groove throughout the record, a return to some of the more involved, multi-section textures that drove the headbangers wild on albums like “Master of Puppets,” an audible upping of the angst ante.
Garry Thie of South Buffalo, who will see Metallica for the sixth time Tuesday, says “Death Magnetic” is “a major step up from the previous three albums. It seems like it would fit into their late ’80s era, but is still unique to itself. It proves that they still have what it takes.”
Like Thie, the majority of the band’s fans responded to “Death Magnetic” with enthusiasm, granting Metallica its highest first-week sales in more than a decade, and eventually pushing the album beyond the triple platinum mark.
Many of these fans are likely to be new ones, kids making their first purchase of a Metallica disc. Blame their parents, or more likely, “Guitar Hero,” which has its own all-Metallica edition. Last week, the Metallica Tap Tap Revenge iPhone App was made available, and is expected to become the highest-selling paid app at the iTunes Music store. Metallica is “cool” all over again.
Meanwhile, the group soldiers on, kicking trends in the teeth as it once more treads its lumbering behemoth’s path across the country.
Something about this fact is strangely comforting.
A mix of old, new
Throughout its “Death Magnetic” tour, Metallica has been pulling songs from every nook and cranny of its storied career, and melding them to the equally strong material from its latest album. The reviews have been unanimously positive, if occasionally condescending. Much more important, the fans seem genuinely pleased with “their” band, if the endless stream of message board raves and reader comments offers any indication.
Don’t wanna be a spoiler here, but over the course of the tour so far, we’ve seen some set list patterns emerge. Essentially, these boil down to a strong early showing of “Death Magnetic” material, followed by an epic oldie for the seasoned fans, and no paucity of the “Black Album” that turned the band from a metalhead’s mantra into a household name.
There are plenty of surprises, of course. But there don’t necessarily need to be. The massive in-the-round stage set, the bountiful pyrotechnics, the 360-degree fan’s-eye view, and the relentless athleticism and aggression of the band members are the hallmarks of a Metallica show, and they will all be in evidence Tuesday in HSBC Arena.
Oh, and don’t miss the first song of the encore. Throughout the tour, the band has been pulling out some very interesting covers, some of them delightfully obscure, some less so. So far, the boys have tackled songs from the likes of Motorhead, Queen and the Misfits in this prime slot.
jmiers@buffnews.com
Reader comments
Log into MyBuffalo to post a comment
MyBuffalo is the new social network from Buffalo.com. Your MyBuffalo account lets you comment on and rate stories at buffalonews.com. You can also head over to mybuffalo.com to share your blog posts, stories, photos, and videos with the community. Join now or learn more.
Comments have been disabled.
Due to a high volume of submissions that violate The News’ guidelines, commenting is no longer available on this story. If you’d like to share your thoughts on this story, click here to get information on contributing to The News’ opinion pages.