The autopilot in heavy metal hard rock thrash works: Metallica have behind the ugly artwork of 72 Seasons a potentially (very) good 40 minute album inflated into a solidly draining 77 minute session.
Let’s not linger too long on all of the disc’s obvious flaws, though – like the self for, among other things Metallica-Relationships Shocking Eye Cancer Cover; the really annoying inability of the band to edit their material in a way that suits the song instead of taking it too seriously and exaggerating it in a meandering overlength – especially since the annoying tendency to simply loop passages in the structures repetitively is as noticeable this time as it is otherwise St. Anger; or the decision to mix Ulrich’s grotesquely one-dimensional drumming with all its limited clichés so far into the foreground that it injects an additional shovel of boredom into the compositions, while all the riffs around it are rather well-versed barware anyway Hammett’s wah-wah solos, which are always the same, are absolutely disappointing at most, and Hetfield’s actually very pleasingly fit vocals deliver a litany from the same formula book that has been heard a hundred times.
So let’s leave these blemishes behind the fan glasses that catch your eye a little – even at the risk of 72 Seasons as well as the far too benevolently evaluated, ultimately hardly sustainable Hardwired…to Self-Destruct too positive to look at.
The start succeeds with the brisk title song, finally beyond expectations, reminiscent of the basis of Death Magnetic (even if neither its basic level, let alone such highlights a la All Nightmare Long in the course of 72 Seasons can by no means be reached), and keeps the level stable for the time being, despite a latently falling quality curve, if over Shadows Fallthe crispy riffing flagship Screaming Suicidea melodic throttled one Sleepwalk My Life Away (with its deceptive bass groove onset) and You Must Burn! (with its almost doomy tendencies) the hard rock (Re)Load-Elements are weighted more heavily in the course of the construction kit: the song material up to this point is actually consistently convincing after the beginning, despite the tolerably negative amplitude, but then a certain oversaturation has been consumed in one piece because of the sounds that tend to be enormously uniform here and there crept in.
Eternal Light injected into the arc of suspense at the bottom of the valley as probably the best possible imitation of the 80sMetallica in this respect ideally placed the necessary momentum and uses the stereotypes as an entertaining impulse to 72 Seasons out the back (and about the martially throbbing as a feint Crown of Barbed Wire as the only really dispensable admission in terms of laziness) to dive again: Chasing Light is a vital standard in the best sense and If Darkness Had a Son Post-00s mood-mongering with old-school pastiche, how to imagine a trend-consistent, up-to-date one generated by competent AI Metallicasong introduces.
Nevertheless: why the band doesn’t always get to the point as in the crisp and brisk, straight and briskly pointed ones Too Far Gone? or the equally urgent Room of Mirrors, remains a riddle, which is revealed by the ambition of the eleven-minute closer, which stares so far into the atmospheric calm and absolutely wants to be epic, but can never become iconic Inamorata cannot be solved – but is quite symptomatic of the ambivalence of this draining, little individual character in the discography-generating show running. The claims that you now have Metallica has of course changed a long time ago – how satisfied one can ultimately be with a comfort zone autopilot that ignores the euphoria and lacks originality is surprising again this time.
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