The kings of metal are back with a new record, and so are those who never forgave them for moving beyond thrash. Isn’t it time to rethink Metallica?

When I interviewed James Hetfield, Metallica’s vocalist, rhythm guitarist and songwriter, for my book on The Black Album, he said that he could understand, and to a certain extent even sympathize, with people who considered Metallica’s early thrash-metal classics vital to their personal development. Along with Anthrax, Megadeth and Slayer – who, coincidently, have all had impressive recent records or gigs – they created the key components of a sound that has reverberated through hard rock and metal ever since, and was latched on to by young angry fans in the 80s and 90s. For many, that sound is Metallica, despite the band moving into more experimental sounds for the last two decades. When something sacred to someone changes, the reaction can be anger. It can feel like a betrayal.



When something sacred to someone changes, the reaction can be anger. It can feel like a betrayal

For over 35 years Metallica has given aggressive amplification to the trials, traumas and triumphs of the human spirit; creating and producing a musical form fit for the substance of revolt against restraint, injustice and disappointment.

“When you are a teenager, you just want to be heard,” Hetfield told me, “And we thought that if we played harder and louder than everybody else, we would be heard.” He punctuated his point with a declaration of personal growth, even if anger will always remain a part of his personality and creative spirit: “To pretend like I’m still 16 and still just as angry would be ridiculous.”

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It has now become impossible to read a story about Metallica without finding a fairly predictable comment thread full of cliched and melodramatic dismissals of the band for no longer writing, thinking and making music like they did when they were 16. The nostalgic, teenage criterion continues to define many fans and critics’ perception of the band. Celebrations of their new record, Hardwired to Self-Destruct, almost unanimously begin with praise for Metallica’s “return to metal”. Some of the album does resemble the Metallica of Ride the Lightning, but other tracks such as Moth to the Flame bear the marks of the band embracing their versatility. It’s a good Metallica record and requires no relegation to memories of a bygone era, especially when that era is one that, for the songwriters themselves, exists primarily in the past.



In the 1990s, when Metallica became the biggest live draw in the world after the commercial triumph of The Black Album, and followed their bestseller with Load and ReLoad, heavy-metal purists turned against them. The Atlantic once derided Metallica as the “poster boys for musical un-integrity”, while many fans blamed Black Album producer Bob Rock, who had previously worked with Aerosmith and Mötley Crüe, for the band’s shift to hard rock. For his part, Rock has said that the fans who turned on Metallica in the 1990s “never really understood Metallica”.

For their detractors it did not matter that Metallica shined a searchlight on a new market for heavy music, leading radio and MTV to welcome Soundgarden, Alice in Chains and Nirvana to the airwaves. Metallica changed, and that was unacceptable. Reality, always stubborn, shows that they took a great risk with experimentation. By exploring their hard rock influences of Black Sabbath, Motörhead and Aerosmith, and making aggressive music with what lead guitarist Kirk Hammett calls “soul groove” they threatened to alienate their fanbase.

The new sounds and styles of play were vehicles for the further exploration of the internal territory and topography of James Hetfield. As his lyrics grew deeper and richer, he developed an intense immediacy in his musical voice of presence, embodying the insight of an existentialist – a leather-clad, head banging, rock’n’roll shouting Sartre.

Hetfield’s growth accounted for the birth of two split-side personalities within the collective body and spirit of Metallica. There is the familiar Metallica of Garage Inc and their thunderous live performances, and there exists the unpredictable Metallica – an exciting band that can collaborate with Lou Reed.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest James Hetfield of Metallica: ‘… a leather-clad, head banging, rock’n’roll shouting Sartre’. Photograph: Hannibal Hanschke/Reuters

The bizarre curse on a band for their longevity and variety leads to amusing contradictions. St Anger – a record so dark and intense it often feels invasive – is worthy of contempt, because it is too experimental, while Death Magnetic, the excellent 2008 release that harked back to … And Justice For All and Master of Puppets, is awful, according to critics because it is a shameless attempt to recapture former glory. Metallica will face fiery condemnation regardless of what they do. They are doomed if they return to their 1980s style, but damned if they innovate, regardless of what that experimentation inspires.

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Their almost universally loathed collaboration with Lou Reed, Lulu, helped inspire David Bowie to write Blackstar, and Reed, shortly before his death, claimed that the juggernaut of Metallica’s power running on the fuel of his literary lyrics created a stampede, sonically approximate to the way he always imagined his music sounding, but could never quite capture. It also shows Metallica at their most explorative and most mature.



The rap against Metallica is not only juvenile, it is actually resistant to maturity. As Metallica grew, and began chronicling adult experiences and struggles in more varied forms of artistic expression, many old fans, probably unwilling to travel with them and still desirous of the nostalgic comfort of Kill ’Em All, projected their own wish for an eternal adolescence with articulation of an irrational hatred for them.

It is ironic that what initially attracted many fans – the raucous rock of revolt played according to an internal conductor – has now repelled many of them. Individualism upsets those who do not maintain it, and the “sell-out” charge invites Shakespearean scrutiny. Do they protest too much? Is there an infrastructure for artists to change, adapt and adjust to the fluctuating demands of their own creative imagination? If not, are artists mere machines for consumer amusement?

“We’re one of those bands that doesn’t really care what people want,” drummer Lars Ulrich recently said, provoking conniptions across social media. I don’t want Metallica to consider what I want, and I certainly don’t want them to censor themselves according to what their detractors demand. I want them to play the songs of beautiful destruction that they have continually created in the accumulation of one of the greatest hard rock and heavy metal careers on record.