Metallica - Hardwired...To Self-Destruct: Album Review

I don’t really need to explain who Metallica is. You know who they are, your dad knows who they are, babies who just came out of the womb know “Enter Sandman” and “For Whom the Bell Tolls” by heart.

Even still, Metallica’s discography has been… weird… as of late. The war crime known as St. Anger was released in 2003 before being followed up by what is possibly their best record, Death Magnetic in 2008, and a really hit-or-miss collaboration with Lou Reed in 2011. So it’s safe to say that no one really knew what to expect with Hardwired... To Self-Destruct. The band’s first batch of 100% original material in almost a decade.  It should also be noted that this is the first Metallica album not to have any musical input from Kirk Hammett.

The thing to take away from Hardwired is that Metallica have always been, and still are… Metallica. It’s hard to call the style of music they’re going for here isn’t Metallica to a T’. What I mean by that is, much like Death Magnetic, Hardwired is a thrash album with more elements of blues rock and classic heavy metal rather than the faster, riff-heavy stuff of Megadeth or modern acts like Havok. So while some tracks (see “Hardwired”, “Atlas, Rise!”) are very fast, the speed and intensity is not the focus. The focus is on more smooth sounding riffs with more melody and groove than you average thrash band.

So Hardwired pretty much lives or dies based on whether or not those riffs got you into the groove or not. This is where Hammett’s lack of input both helps and hurts the album. Hardwired has two main flavors, so to speak. The hard and fast thrash that the band excelled at on Death Magnetic comes back, and when speed is the focus, the songs actually turn out pretty well. “Spit Out The Bone”, “Moth Into the Flame” and “Hardwired” all succeed at what the band’s best at: blues-y thrash. The other half, however, is a bit different. In the words of a die-hard Metallica fan friend of mine: “Some of this album sounds like a no-bullshit version of Load and Reload”. The songs that come to mind are “ManUNkind” and “Am I Savage?”. Don’t let the Load and Reload comparison turn you off, these songs are definitely slower and more melodious than the other tracks, but where it differs from Load and Reload is the riffs are much more creative and overall more musically diverse. As a result, they may not be all to your liking, but end up feeling like a great pace-breaker.

As for the actual mixing and sound design for Hardwired, not much has changed since Lulu or Death Magnetic. Strong, thick bass and loud drums to emphasize beat and rhythm, with similar distortion and effects added that occasionally emphasizes Hammett's solos (get ready for more wha than waluigi) and the occasional snappy drum fill.

While Metallica hasn’t necessarily gotten better, they haven’t gotten worse either. That is to say, they have not achieved perfection, no matter what they actually think of themselves. That being said, if I had to point out some changes from Death Magnetic to now, the band did seem to learn from their mistakes. I always hated how overblown and repetitive some of the songs on Death Magnetic were (“Judas Kiss” didn’t need to be 5 minutes long let alone 8), and while Hardwired is similar in length, it knows how to condense its music. Some songs do drag on, with nobody in Metallica appearing to know the difference between “progressive” and “repetitive” but instead of having 6 tracks that we just can’t listen to because they drag on for 8 minutes, we have a small batch of songs that just could have been cut by a verse or two. As for the actual talent of the band, Lars hasn’t gotten worse, Hammett sounds solid, Trujillo still sounds like he’s being held back, it’s all standard stuff. The only thing that does sound improved is Hetfield’s voice, which has become more restrained as opposed to trying every five minutes to shout “ooh yeah” or try to pull of a King Diamond falsetto.

So what’s the final verdict? It’s good. Not perfect, but Metallica really hasn’t gotten worse over the course of a decade. One may wonder why they even bothered to write new music, since they’re in that rare group of musicians who could endorse ISIS and still sell out stadiums. But with its blend of Metallica brand thrash and more heavy rock than a quarry, it was hard not to like Hardwired, even if it might have overstayed its welcome by the end.

TLDR: It’s fine, I would've preferred a shorter album with more thrash, but Metallica’s work is still good enough to warrant a purchase.

7/10