Metallica’s Kirk Hammett Gives A Release Date For Next Album
The followup to Metallica’s 2008 release, Death Magnetic, has been eagerly anticipated by fans of the band for several years. Throughout the summer, vague remarks and off-hand comments by the members of Metallica have been salivated over by fans, even though the members of Metallica seemed to be doing their best to make it unclear whether or not they were even in the studio.
A few weeks ago, Metallica gave their legions of fans the first concrete indicators that they were in the studio recording their next album. Unveiling their brand new Fifth Member fan club on their newly revamped website, Metallica’s drummer brought Fifth Member subscribers into the band’s HQ recording studio in Northern California. Once there, fans got to see James Hetfield in the midst of recording a new song.
Okay, so fans finally know that a new album is being recorded, and now, it seems, thanks to Metallica’s lead guitar player, Kirk Hammett, we might also know when it’s going to be released.
“Well, you know, we’re moving forward. We’re hoping that the album will be released next year. It’s pretty much more along the same lines as Death Magnetic — kind of like that direction. And, you know, we’ll see. We’re into it. I don’t wanna say that we’re a third into it, or two-thirds into it, or an eighth into it, ’cause anything could happen that’ll just change that number. But, eventually, you will see a new Metallica album, and it will most likely be in 2016, and at the very worst, at the beginning of 2017.”
There’s a few things that fans can dissect from Kirk’s statements.
First off, as to the comments about the release date of the album; Death Magnetic was released in September of 2008. Using that release date as a template, we might surmise that Metallica’s management, Q-Prime, will be pushing the band for a similar release date for the next album. Kirk’s comment that the next album would be released in early 2017 at the latest, kind of feeds into the notion that the next album will be released in late (read: September) 2016; if there’s an unforseen stumble, the album will still be released in early 2017.
Secondly, the notion that the new album is in much of the same vein as Death Magnetic was is a good sign for Metallica fans. The truth is, since the self-titled release in the early nineties, (often called The Black Album), Metallica has really rolled the dice with each release. The Black Album switched the band out of the things they were best known for up to that point. Gone were the longer songs, gone were the multiple time changes, gone was Hetfield’s signature yell-scream vocals. Sure, The Black Album worked beautifully, the shorter, more melodic and – dare I say it – “radio friendly” songs sold millions upon millions of records. However, after The Black Album, Metallica switched things up again and again, and most attempts fell flat. Since The Black Album, every album release that Metallica has put out has debuted at No. 1. However, the critics and critical fans haven’t been so gung-ho on everything the band has released.
I’m not even going to touch things like S&M or Lulu as all of those releases were one-offs. I’m sticking to the actual full-length LP releases.
With Load and Re-Load, it seemed like Metallica was just throwing together what came to mind at the time. There was little continuity across the board with either release. Both records have some fantastic songs on them, and both records have some songs that Metallica might have (or should have) left on the cutting room floor.
St. Anger really stripped things back. Yeah, we can say that there was a hurricane of dysfunction surrounding the band and the release of the record, but at the end of the day, Metallica released it and should be judged on it. Again, there are some great songs on St. Anger, but ask any Metallica fan which record has the most screwed up snare drum sound, and 99 percent of them will point out St. Anger. Yes, the band was trying to “mix” things up once again, but it fell flat.
Kirk’s comments that we can look forward to an album in the same vein as Death Magnetic near the end of next year is good news for Metallica fans.
[Photo by Michael Kovac/Getty Images for Metallica Through The Never]
