Metallica

"Hardwired to Self-Destruct"

Rank: 78/100

Few bands are subjected to the kind of scrutiny when releasing a new album as Metallica. But that's what happens when your first five records – from 1983's Kill 'Em All to 1991's 'Black Album' – are regarded as metal classics. Of course, it doesn't help that the past few decades have yielded more ups and downs than a stock market, testing the patience of even the most ardent fan, whether it be the perceived sell-out of 1996's Load, St. Anger's songless din or the much maligned collaboration with Lou Reed, 2011's Lulu.

​

If, as many believe, Metallica righted the ship with 2008's Death Magnetic, the 12 tracks spread across this double album continue that trajectory. There are nods to the band's thrash past – "Hardwired", the brilliantly-titled "Spit Out the Bone" – and such is the riffing and attitude of "Atlas, Rise!" that it could have been plucked off their Kill 'Em All debut.

​

Primarily, though, this is an album of grooves, and some of them are monsters ("Am I Savage?", "Dream No More"). On occasion the band overthink things and trip themselves up ("ManUNkind"), and there would have been some merit in shaving a few songs off the tracklist to make an even 10. But when that's the biggest complaint of an album by a band 35 years into their career – a band with a catalogue as rich as Metallica's, no less – it's clear they're doing much more than just treading water. Instead they're shouting at the top of their lungs, "We ain't done yet!"