Post # 403
Metallica released 72 Seasons in 2023, almost 7 years after their last album, Hardwired... To Self-Destruct. With the COVID-19 pandemic hitting in 2020 and slowing the world down for over a year, one might wonder if that lengthened the gap between albums. Perhaps it did, and gave the band members some unexpected downtime to focus on writing music? Or maybe it held them back from jamming together, and stalled the creative process further? We may never know. Nevertheless, it's here now and Metallica are over a year into their M72 tour in support of this album. It's high time I took an in-depth look into it.
The album opens with the title track - '72 Seasons', a fast-paced, heavy thrashing number that opens with a galloping bass line, pacing cymbals, and after a few measures, the rhythm guitar kicks in, giving the song it's definitive key and direction. Lyrically the song seems to tackle the dog-eat-dog nature of our competitive society and how it shapes us through our first 72 seasons (18 years). Metallica have said that the overall theme of the album is this formative stage of life: our first 72 seasons.
A powerful, stop & go, mid-tempo riff introduces the next track, 'Shadows Follow'. It has a unique groove, and a distinctive riff to define itself. Overall, the bulk of 72 Seasons could be described this way- distinctive and creative riffs, introspective-to-esoteric lyrics, a strong mid-tempo groove delivered by bassist Rob Trujio and drummer Lars Ulrich's concrete rhythm section. Over the course of their career, the mid-tempo groove-thrasher has been Metallica's bread & butter formula: 'Enter Sandman', 'Wherever I May Roam', 'Seek & Destroy', 'For Whom the Bell Tolls'... you see it now. This album will give you plenty of songs in a similar vein.
When we reach the 6th track, we get this album's crown-jewel of a track in 'Lux Æterna'. Like the title track, this is another top-notch, fast-tempo thrasher that can be comparatively ranked among the best songs from their glory days in the mid 1980's. It was the first track released prior to the album's release, and deservingly so!
As a long-time Metallica fan, I found a couple of elements, be they lyrical, or musical, that I felt made connections with classic songs from the band's past. 'Crown of Barbed Wire', for instance, reminded me of the Load-era hit, 'King Nothing'. Similarly, I thought 'Inamorata' could almost be a sequel to The Black Album's 'My Friend of Misery', as they both focus on a personification of the emotion of misery. Whether these connections are intentional or coincidental is hard to say without sitting down and interviewing the band directly about it, but as a fan, it is fun to speculate.
Overall, this is an album packed will killer riffs, and plenty of introspective and cathartic lyrics. If 72 Seasons has any flaws it may be that it's too solid, too consistent, or too formulaic. One of my favorite elements of Metallica's music has always been their use of clean guitar tones, especially in songs where they juxtapose them with powerful, distorted riffs in songs like 'One', 'Fade to Black' and 'The Day That Never Comes'. For whatever reason, clean guitar sounds are as absent on this album as guitar solos were absent on the St. Anger album. Maybe Metallica just found a groove on this new album and stayed the course, believing there's no such thing as 'too much of a good thing'. It has certainly pleased the fans, and probably welcomed thousands more! While it may still be new and fresh, I will always look forward to the next Metallica album. Let's enjoy this one to the fullest in the meantime!
My recommended tracks from 72 Seasons:
-72 Seasons (Links to official music video)
-Lux Æterna
-Crown of Barbed Wire
-Inamorata
As with their last album, Metallica again filmed music videos for every track on the album. I won't embed every single one of them here, but I'll give you this link to their Youtube Playlist, 72 Seasons: The Videos.
Check out my personally curated (shorter) Metallica playlist on Spotify.
Or my Longer Metallica Playlist (10+ hours)
And as always... HAPPYHEADBANGING, Y'ALL!
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