Metallica

Technically, that's not a solo anyway, it's an interlude. Same story with the slow part on Master of Puppets.

So it's normal that he hands the part to Kirk. But the making of documentary shows James coming up with the pattern and recording it.
 
Part of me likes that they're making James' vocals sound more natural, but part of me wishes they'd use more effects like they did in the 90's to give his tone some more heft.
 
I wouldn't mind them processing the vocals a bit more. There's something to be said for a raw recording, especially for the type of music they're doing, but his vocals come off as weak compared to the power of the instruments. Even Bruce needs some vocal processing sometimes.
 
Gotta agree with the effects on vocals stuff. Hardwired so far sounds miles better than DM did in that department though, largely because they actually added some reverb on the vocal tracks rather than keeping them as dry as possible. And even then, all of the vocals on Death Magnetic sound really wimpy in the mix, but isolated (from the Guitar Hero stems) the delivery's generally very good, sometimes nearly on par with some of Hetfield's best stuff from the Black Album.
 
I'm personally a little tired of the "rough and raw" approach that the band has been fixated on...that touch of reverb on MOP is what made it such a good sounding album IMHO. Same thing with the Black Album with all of the processing and polish. I never got the "well, we have the best gear and engineering talent that money can buy, but lets make it sound like we're in a tract home garage to keep it real" attitude. I listened to the two new tunes after listening to Meshuggah and Gojia, and it was....challenging....because the Metallica tunes sounded weak in comparison sonically (even though they were fine musically).
 
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Atlas, Rise:


...does very little for me. Sounds forced and half-hearted. These riffs are just so stock. There's nothing to them, no meat, just bones. Kirk's solo is once again terrible and uninspired. The post-solo harmonized stuff is easily the best (and most interesting) part of the song. Vocals are also underwhelming. "Crushed under heavy skies" is the only part that sounds convincing to me, the only part with any real conviction.
 
I like Atlas, but all the tracks sound very generic to me. How many riffs did they have? Minus Kirk's phone obviously...mmm.
It's looking like their worst effort with no new interesting stuff. (BOS pt2 ;) )

Metallicheese.
 
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I thought it was really boring. Even worse than Hardwired. At least Moth into Flame was good.

All of these songs pale in comparison to stuff from Death Magnetic. DM had arrangement and production issues, but it was full of killer riffs.
 
Srogyy said:
Some people notice minor HBTN similarities in there
Click to expand...
Quite obvious, they are.

The song didn't really do much to me. The mid-part was pretty cool, but the main riff and solo both sound, to take Knick's words as mine, uninspired. There was nothing in here that Metallica haven't done better before.
 
I dunno... Metallica seems to be struggling with their identity in the post-rock world. They don't have the ideas or headspace for the prog-thrash stuff, and they seem to shy away now from the more straight forward rock/metal stuff they did in the 90s.
 
I thought Death Magnetic got a pretty good reception. But it would be hard to get a lesser reception than St. Anger/Load 2
 
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