Metallica have to be the most simultaneously well known, well loved and well despised Metal bands in all of existence. However when they hide away for years, only coming out occasionally to drop a big steaming collaborative turd and a few live rats on our doorstep, everyone's going to be intrigued when they finally get it together and produce a fully fledged studio album, let alone a double one! That's right, this is the first double album Metallica have released so they must have spent a long time planning some awesome music, right?
I mean, if you've been keeping up with Metal related chatter, you must be aware of all the non-news stories about random members of Metallica saying "We have [INSERT NUMBER HERE] riffs lined up!" or "We're about [INSERT FRACTION HERE] way through recording!", building up two years worth of hype. SURELY after setting the bar so high, the band that gave us such brilliant songs as "Creeping Death" and "One" would be able to deliver? The short answer is Yes...half of it does. The long answer is several paragraphs long and funnily enough, it's just below this sentence.
Album opener, lead single and title track "Hardwired" is, unintentionally, the best example of the album's ultimate flaw; it's half-great. It's punchy, it's got a few decent Metallica riffs and it's the band giving it both barrels. Unfortunately, it could've done with more decent Metallica riffs, the lyrics in the chorus are too close to a line from a Tenacious D song for me to take it seriously and it's over just when it gets good. It's the shortest song on the album and it's the only one that I feel needs to be over six minutes. It's a terrible lead single, an acceptable title track and, if it was a bit more Metallica-y, it would've made for a great album opener.
As for the rest of the album, it could've been amazing or just great overall if they didn't blow their load on the first disc. However, if we're judging the album based on individual discs then the first disc is a fucking classic. It has tunes that remind fans that Metallica can still get it up in the fast paced Heavy and Thrash Metal department ("Atlas, Rise!", "Moth Into Flame"), along with slower tracks containing an abundance of top quality riffs well placed to prevent typical Metallica songs from becoming a bit stale, clearly taking influence from Black Album material and peers such as Judas Priest and Iron Maiden ("Dream No More", "Now That We're Dead", "Halo Of Fire").
You can argue that even those songs have their flaws ("Halo Of Fire" should've been a wee bit shorter to get to the fantastic outro quicker) but on the whole, this is what the whole album should've been. A mix of energetic Thrash Metal and slower Heavy Metal, chock full of enough guitar to give Metalheads something to sink their teeth into for weeks. However, the second disc fails on almost every level to continue the momentum set by these first six songs and the sad thing is it could've been easily remedied.
Instead of balancing fast and slow songs, the second disc is heavily populated by pure filler. Bland, plodding Metal that's a complete wet blanket after hearing the first half of the record. It opens with "Confusion", a decent track but mostly unimpressive and too safe for the first song on the second disc. If this was the only "good, not great" song, there wouldn't be a problem but that's just the beginning. It's a solid five song block of slower material without a wake-up slap of any kind in the middle.
Inspiration from older albums, particularly ...And Justice For All and Metallica, is still here ("Here Comes Revenge") and a couple of songs have similarities between other Metal bands such as Megadeth and modern Black Sabbath ("Am I Savage?" and "ManUNkind" respectively) but not in a good way (is there even a good way with modern Black Sabbath?). Musically, it's atypical to your standard Metallica tracks but it doesn't work here, at least not without some of the juice from the first disc in between. However, the biggest slap in the face has to be "Murder One", another track that gets it half right and half disastrously, catastrophically, embarrassingly wrong.
Lyrically, it's excellent. It's a suitable tribute to Lemmy, combining titles from Motorhead songs to form something new that both celebrates the band's legacy and empowers the memory of Lemmy. Musically, it's piss weak. It's a damp slog, not the kind of music I associate with Motorhead. Why the hell didn't they pump some anger and passion into this tribute, it could've been fantastic! Lemmy deserved something blisteringly hot, not mildly tepid. Failing that, if they weren't feeling angry, why not make it more heartfelt? Why not have a go at harnessing the creative talent used to write "Fade To Black" or "The Unforgiven" into one last goodbye to the Magnificent Bastard of Metal (or rather Rock & Roll)? In my eyes, it's a swing and a colossal miss.
The one saving grace is that the second half ends on something with a pulse; "Spit Out The Bone". THIS would've been a great album opener, not "Hardwired". It's the missing spark from the second disc that finally has Rob Trujillo doing something on bass, most likely placed at the end of the album to fool listeners into thinking the whole album was pumped full of power. However, for anyone who can store at least an hour in their short term memory, it's too little and too late. So how could they have salvaged it and made the whole album brilliant instead of just the first half?
The answer is simple; all they needed was one great song, placed between "Here Comes Revenge" and "Am I Savage?", or better yet, replacing one of those. It would've given listeners more variety and helped strengthen the belief that Metallica have written another incredible album. If only they had another song spare; not just any song, one that's fast, furious and proven to be awesome...OH HOLD THE FUCKING PHONE, they did! It's called "Lords Of Summer" and it was shunted onto another Deluxe Edition as the first track.
I could rant about how cheap this is on the band's part but the fact is I already have, right here. I'm not going to type it out again because then you'd be receiving the same content repackaged slightly differently and this isn't the Deluxe Edition review of the new Metallica album...OK, I've had digs at Deluxe Edition albums before but if they're going to keep making them, I'm going to keep ripping on them.
For all my criticising, Hardwired...To Self-Destruct isn't a bad album. It's a flawed, imperfect album that would've been handled much better by a band who perhaps weren't as motivated by money but overall, they've done well to mix elements of their "best" albums from the past with what they got right in Death Magnetic. It's clear that they'll never be pure Thrash again but they're still pretty damn heavy when they want to be and can produce enough top quality Metal to fill at least one single album.
However, it desperately needed something in the middle to shoot some life into it before it was over. Metallica came out hard and fast on the first disc but spent too long catching their breath during the second one. This wouldn't have been as big a problem if the first four songs they released to the public weren't 80% of the fast material on the album, akin to giving away all if not most of the CGI money shots of a film in the trailer, but it's happened now and I rate it 6/10 (would've been a strong 7 with "Lords Of Summer").
If you like Metal riffs regardless of the rest of the song, this is a brilliant album and I would recommend it on the basis that it's full of them. If you were hoping for something energetic as teased in the singles/title track, you'll probably be disappointed but will likely get over it when you listen to "Moth Into Flame" a few times. If you think Metallica have been shit since 1991 but still intend on listening to it just so you can shitpost about Lars ruining your favourite band, sod off into your bathroom or kitchen or wherever you keep the bleach and pour yourself a pint to celebrate how fucking elite you are, you precious little darling.
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