19-06-2003 01:50									#1
	So this is what happenned to Metallica's sound... Support Apolyton, buy GURPS/ Alpha Centauri

quote: What's Up With The Sound On The New Metallica Album? 06.13.2003 7:54 AM EDT "We wanted to disregard what everybody assumes records should be and throw out all the rules." — producer Bob Rock No other contemporary chart-topping rock album sounds remotely like Metallica's St. Anger. Never mind the whirlwind tempos, multiple rhythm changes and seven-minute songs. What's really unusual are the lo-fi tones and unconventional constructions. The drums don't crack, they clang, and cymbals cut out abruptly. There are no guitar solos. Once in a while a guitar lick lags behind the beat, and frontman James Hetfield's vocals occasionally veer off key. Stranger still, that's exactly the way Metallica and producer Bob Rock wanted it to sound. "I wanted to do something to shake up radio and the way everything else sounds," said Rock, who helped write the music and lyrics and played basslines on the album. "To me, this album sounds like four guys in a garage getting together and writing rock songs." The genesis of Metallica's raw new sound had as much to do with art as with anger. Shortly after Metallica hired Rock —, who had worked on their last three studio records, including the pristine, polished Metallica (a.k.a. "the black album") (Siro: and including their very unpopular and not-metal albums "load" and "reload") — the producer told drummer Lars Ulrich that he was tired of clean, by-the-book production. He proposed recording in a way that made a statement like some of Ulrich's favorite artists, including Dutch primitivism painter Karel Appel, the Danish experimentalists CoBrA and various groundbreaking jazz musicians. From word one, Lars was on board. Metallica achieved the primitive sound and schizophrenic vibe of St. Anger by combining old recording technology with cutting-edge editing software. While Rock had previously rigged Lars' kit with multiple modern microphones and dampened the bass drum with pillows, spending as much as a week perfecting a snare sound, this time Rock spent five minutes setting up the drums and recorded the rest of the band with a combination of cheap PA mics and vintage microphones. With the bare-bones recording equipment in place, Metallica started coming up with riffs together and rocked them out like a group of friends hooking up just to mess around. Once they'd concocted rhythms they liked, they'd combine them and record long jam sessions. Lyrics were written by the entire band moments before a song was recorded, and Hetfield's vocals were recorded in one or two takes to capture the immediacy of the moment, glitches and all. "There was really no time to get amazing performances out of James," Rock said. "We liked the raw performances. And we didn't do what everyone does and what I've been guilty of for a long time, which is tuning vocals. We just did it, boom, and that was it." After the basic recordings were done, Metallica tried to add guitar solos. Kirk Hammett recorded a bunch of leads ranging from slow and evocative to lightning-fast and aggressive, but Rock and the band ultimately decided to leave them all out. "We made a promise to ourselves that we'd only keep stuff that had integrity," Rock said. "We didn't want to make a theatrical statement by adding overdubs. If we added something and it helped the mood or what we were trying to convey, that stayed. But if it distracted from that ... then we killed it. Every time we tried to do a solo, either it dated it slightly or took away from what we were trying to accomplish in some other way. I think we wanted all the aggression to come from the band rather than one player." Once the band packed up its gear, it was time to unpack the computers. They used the computer program ProTools to reconstruct the songs in sometimes drastically different ways. "A lot of the songs were done in William Burroughs cut-and-paste fashion," said Rock, referring to a style in which a piece of writing is cut into pieces and reassembled at random. "There are movements in moviemaking and in music where you take technology as an art and you actually abuse it. Some people use ProTools to trick and fool the listener, but we used it more as a creative tool to do something interesting and stretch boundaries. "Technically, you'll hear cymbals go away and you'll hear bad edits. We wanted to disregard what everybody assumes records should be and throw out all the rules. I've spent 25 years learning how to do it the so-called right way. I didn't want to do that anymore." —Jon Wiederhorn

All I want to say is a big F*CK YOU BOB ROCK


I've been so ****ing excited about this album, and so swayed by promises of "new heavy tunes" and "going back to earlier styles".

I've listened to samples of recordings that didn't make it to this album amd are melodical, fast and heavy (DK Rolls is one).

It's Bob Rock's luck that no metallica fan reads mtv.com (where this interview was), and the only link was found on some destitute metallica fan site.

If this was public knowledge, I but some freak would have done some nasty things to him.

	19-06-2003 01:55									#2
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go protools!

	19-06-2003 01:56									#3
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I didn't think Metallica could get worse, and then I heard some tracks from St. Anger. OMG, it's just sad. My dog could write better music.

	19-06-2003 02:01									#4
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You can tell Hedfield wrote it under time pressure, he was told to write songs in minutes.

The whole feel of the album is too commercialised, trying to be their old selves when they are simply not capable of it. And I HATE the copy protection!!!!

	19-06-2003 02:03									#5
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I FLUSH IT OUT FLUSH IT OUT FLUSH IT OUT

I'M MADLY IN ANGER WITH YOU

RAAAAR

	19-06-2003 02:25									#6
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:sad:

	19-06-2003 02:37									#7
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*points and laughs*

I actually mildly enjoyed it, in the sence that I bothered to download a couple of songs of it. ( Will the record industry's black choppers arrive now? ).

I think it's good that they're trying to reinvent themselves. That's always positive, esp. since they did loose credibility in the general rock/metal fan population. But it would be even better if I actually had fun with their music.

	19-06-2003 02:43									#8
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Pah.

Load and Reload were much more metal than this. And they were mostly hard rock. I loved many of their songs. Why? Because they were all very melodical, deep, meaningful (usually), and... welll... perfect.

The new album is merely some riffs (1 or 2 musical phrases) recorded using an empty glass and a cord and cut and pasted using a double casette stereo And it sounds like it too!


As for downloading - I could only download things that didn't get into their album. I tried to download their stuff several times each time hitting fakes.

Can you help?

	19-06-2003 03:07									#9
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After discovering Rammstein a while ago, I seriously wonder why not all heavy metal bands sing in German. That language fits the music perfectly.

	19-06-2003 11:35									#10
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commercialized?

how can anyone say that?

It's just the opposite.

I love the album. I do have some complaints about the sound quality. Especially the clangy drums. The lack of guitar solos is interesting, but doesn't bother me too much. They've been done to death. No one does guitar solos anymore. The lyrics are kind of lacking though. There are no really good lyrical songs. I haven't read the lyrics yet, but nothing really stands out so far. Although invisible kids sound like it might have decent lyrics- I can only get bits and pieces though- I haven't read them.

	19-06-2003 11:48									#11
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It's commercialized for sure. It's just got that "I'm not commercialized at all" commercialization going on. Just like Avril Lavigne is somehow not completely commercial because she's not Brittany Spears. Same thing. It all sucks.

	19-06-2003 11:59									#12
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People, now you're scaring me. The new album is not yet here, so I'm still trying to figure out if I should buy it or not. These comments don't help very much.

	19-06-2003 12:02									#13
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But that does explain their sound. Thanks for the article. I was wondering about that. There are a few times on the album his voice loses the note.

And it explains why the snare drum (I think that is the name of the drum- I'm not familiar with drum kits) sounds like absolute crap. Although sometimes I like the sound of it, most of the time I don't. The bass drum sounds Okay.

The bass guitar which I complained about before, isn't too bad. But not too good either. I would like them to re-record the album with Rob Trujillo playing the bass.

Also there are no ballad type slow songs. I found that interesting. I've come to expect that from Metallica. And a few 10 second guitar solos wouldn't be so bad.

But I do like the aggressiveness. Musically this album kicks but. Lots of good riffs, and good guitar work. The weak points are the lyrics, drum sound quality, and lack of innovative bass guitar work.

But honestly, I don't give a **** about the ballad slow songs. They weren't that great anyways . I like the heavy songs. It rocks man, it rocks! Musically this is the best metallica album in a long time. Lyrically- well it is a disappointment.

	19-06-2003 12:05									#14
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well "master - faster" ( ) is not exactly the paragon of lyric-writing, yet it's hailed as one of their best songs ever.

	19-06-2003 12:07									#15
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Master of Puppets? That song has other lyrics as well.

I think I know why I like it so much. Because it sounds the most like And Justice for All. My favourite Metallica album. Although it lacks the long guitar solos of Justice, and of course it has not song like One.

Sometimes, I felt I was the only one who like And Justice for all. Metallica themselves seem to hate the album. They hardly play any of those songs- they usually do some medley in which they combine several of the songs from that album into one song.

Also this album isn't as polished as Justice by a long shot.

While it lacks monumental songs such as One, Master of Puppets, Bleeding Me, Enter Sandman and such. It is a rocking album. Solid, in your face Metal.

Last edited by Dis on 19-06-2003 at 12:19

	19-06-2003 14:10									#16
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is it just me being dizzy or am I allowed to post?

	19-06-2003 14:40									#17
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quote: Master of Puppets? That song has other lyrics as well

I know that. I was talking about the lyrics of the entire song. Their later songs have better lyrics, like the Black Album, which I worship and adore with my entire heart.

	19-06-2003 17:43									#18
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It's a brilliant plot, see. They can't really stop people p2p:ing their tracks, so they just make them so that no-one wants to download them.

	19-06-2003 18:11									#19
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Lars can't drum for crap anyway.

Old Metallica is good, but this new album just sounds like the latest crappy numetal band. which I don't like.

	19-06-2003 18:20									#20
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my opinion is most important an I say

*drum beat*

	19-06-2003 19:31									#21
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I haven't heard it yet, but I don't like the idea of no guitar solos because Hammett's such a strong player. At least a few transition solos would be nice...

Guess I'll have to cross my fingers wait for a new Tool disc.

	20-06-2003 10:56									#22
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well I like it, so there

I listened to it all day today as well. The middle of the album is a bit weak with My world, and shoot me again. Some people liked those songs, but I don't.

Yeah a few solos, here and there would be nice. I'm not a big fan of solos though. The solo I like a lot is in the song Battery. The 10 second solo before they start cranking out another verse. There is another solo later in the song which is longer though. I like the solos in 4 horseman too.

Only time will tell for me. Right now I'm still in the new phase, so I may overly like it. I may like it less as time goes by. But right now I seem to like it better than the Load/Reload albums, and I think I like it better than the Black album as well. And I like it better than Ride the Lightening. It can't touch Kill em all, Justice, and Master of puppets though.

I do have a complaint about some of the lyrics. I like the song Purify- but the lyrics don't suit me. Purify- you and I. That is one line I hate. don't purify me- I like being impure . And the song Invisible kid has a stupid rhyme. He rhymes kid with grid- which doesn't seem to make sense to me.

Lyrically this album is far inferior to Load and the Black album.

But I'm happy it is heavier than those album. Lars is a great drummer. He is jammin' in this album. Although I admit the drum sound takes a bit to get used to. Lots of double bass drum which I love. The snare drum is annoying at first, but I'm used to it now.

The guitar work I love. I love the guitar sound. Sounds really gritty, and muddy, and kind of grungy in parts. And I love the speed of the guitars. Especially in songs like Frantic, and the end of Sweet Amber. I only wich it was faster

	20-06-2003 11:56									#23
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Oh you Metallica whinos stop whining about what you want Metallica to sound like.

I remember when everyone was saying how they "sold out" when they came out with Unforgiven.

If Metallica sounded the same on every single album I probably wouldn't listen to them.

Kudos to Metallica for being INNOVATIVE

	20-06-2003 12:15									#24
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while I am used to the low sound quality and muddy sound.

I usually do hate it when directors and now producers it seems use low quality techniques to be "artsy". I hate artsy Nothing is more annoying than watching a movie with a shaky camera. WTF! Is it too much to ask for a steady camera?

But I do enjoy the fact this is the heaviest Metallica album since Juscice for All.

	20-06-2003 15:52									#25
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Well justice does have some very fast and heavy songs, which are very thrash. But I never cared much for it's sound. The drums on Justice are rather annoying and the guitars are .. erm.. mashed or something.

But one thing that Metallica had going for them (except for Kill Em All and a song or two on load / reload) is good lyrics.

I have no idea why did they say that "everyone" wrote the lyrics, instead of James, because 99% of the lyrics talk about James being reborn, learning to channel his anger and ysing his life better

I really hate it when artists that have no good products make intentionally bad products and then claim them to be artsy and "a comment about the high expectations for perfectness in our society".

God damn man. You spend 1000s of $$ on studio work because you actually want the sound to be good.

What's the friggin idea of making it sound bad intentionally? If I want to hear bad sounding music I'll go to the local bar where a local sh*tty band playes. When I listen to Metallica I expect something more.

	20-06-2003 16:22									#26
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I liked the live performance of Blackened

1,2,3,4,5,6,7,1,2,3,4,5,6,7

(one of the Blackened riffs is in 7/4 )

	20-06-2003 17:13									#27
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I like blackend myself.

though I don't usually count the beats..

	20-06-2003 17:15									#28
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it's fun to know it's seven, though

they opened it with battery and master of puppets, just how cool can that be

	20-06-2003 17:44									#29
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Its been downhill since the black album imo

	21-06-2003 02:04									#30
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Kill Em All started pretty well. The next three albums reached the pinacle of thrash metal. Black started downhill. Load fell off the cliff. Reload stayed dead at the bottom of the cliff. Now, St. Anger has found a way to burrow underground even lower than the last 2 albums.