Bigger, Badder, Metaller: New Album for Metallica

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FOR A VIRTUAL metal dinosaur who's been pounding the Earth since 1981, Metallica could be forgiven for resting on its head-banging laurels. But the hard-rock pioneers can't be accused of predictability, so when the world was promised a new, full-length offering in 2008, there was no accurate Satanic soothsaying predicting what Metallica might send bursting through the speakers. Raw spontaneity, circa "St. Anger"? The catchy mid-tempo rock of the '90s' "Load" and Re-Load"? Or just a return to the straight-up thrash that the band created and perfected in the '80s?

"We don't go in with a big idea of how we want the album to sound like," explains Metallica drummer and founder Lars Ulrich. "We really just don't want there to be anything artificial in the way when we create."

Metallica's latest salvo turned out to be "Death Magnetic," released in September. The album received a near-unanimous stamp of approval from Metallica's notoriously hard-to-please fan base by mashing elements from all different stages of the band's lengthy career. The thrashy guitar riffs and melodies spark memories of "Master of Puppets" and "... And Justice for All", while the vocal hooks and the occasional bluesy guitar fill seem to be rooted in the "Load" and "Re-Load" era. It feels as of-the-moment as any Metallica recording — as Ulrich pointed out in a phone conversation, not every fan goes back as far as the band does.

"Now we see kids out there, where they weren't even born yet when Metallica released 'The Black Album,'" he points out.

Perhaps part of the reason "Death Magnetic" is such a cohesive and powerful work is that it's Metallica's first made with the help of Rick Rubin, the genre-busting super-producer.

While the band is sort of a big deal on the musical landscape, Rubin is quite the bigfoot himself. But Ulrich wasn't exactly shaking in his boots. "His thing is all about the experience, so he didn't want us to go into the studio until we were comfortable enough with the material that it was almost like going in and playing a gig. It's all about the vibe. ... And there's only one person who knows when the vibe is right, and it's Rick. So there's an element of trust when we just hand over the controls to Rick like that, which is perfect for a bunch of control freaks like Metallica."

For the band's purposes, its ninth studio album is a success, and not just on the charts in rock magazines.

"I listened to ['Death Magnetic'] the other day in the car, and it still sounds great," says Ulrich. "I think it's an album with a lot going for it, you know? It's getting a great response, and I think it has a lot of attitude.

It's been about six months. ... I can say that not every Metallica lasts six months in my car."

Few artists have reached a point at which they can describe headlining an arena tour, like the one bringing the band to the Verizon Center on Thursday, as an intimate change of pace; and of those, Metallica may well be the band with the least likely background for such a level of success. Born into the California local music scene of the early 1980s, Metallica shunned the high-gloss hair metal of the day in favor of fast, violent guitar riffs and solos, and relied heavily on tape-trading for exposure.

"To me, when I thought of what a rock star was, it was ... Gene Simmons, you know? Bruce Springsteen," recalls Ulrich. "That's never what I was going for. I thought, 'We could be like Angel Witch and Diamond Head. We could be like Tygers of Pan Tang.' ... If anything, I wanted to be like Steve Harris from Iron Maiden. ... He was just a really cool guy in a band."

Although the band never gave up the violent riffing, it now does everything on a much larger scale. "I can laugh at the ridiculousness of it sometimes," comments Ulrich. "My day started in the California suburbs. I said goodbye to the kids, I grabbed a bag and a toothbrush, and I went to get on a private plane to fly to Milwaukee."

»Verizon Center, 601 F St. NW; Thu., Jan 15, 6 p.m., sold out; 202-628-3200. (Gallery Place-Chinatown)

Written by Express contributor Greg Re
Photo by Anton Corbijn

» Read our feature on Metallica's opening act, The Sword.