You might not expect it from one of the loudest, scariest and most stubborn bands in rock, but today Metallica said "sorry". Sort of.

After being criticised for ordering journalists to take down reviews of tracks from their as-yet-untitled new album, the heavy metallers posted a statement on their website blaming the whole farrago on their management.

Their statement reads: "We were informed that someone at Q Prime (our managers) had made the error of asking a few publications to take down reviews of the rough mixes from the new record that were posted on their sites. Our response was 'WHY?!!! Why take down mostly positive reviews of the new material and prevent people from getting psyched about the next record ... that makes no sense to us!'"

The furore began when a bunch of journalists were invited to an album playback last week. Weirdly - and we really don't know what the hell they were thinking about here - some of these journalists then went and wrote about it. Crazy, isn't it? Anyway, someone didn't like it up above, and word was sent out demanding all reviews be taken down on sites such as Kerrang and Metal Hammer. They even went after blogs such as The Quietus.

"Q Prime were obviously only doing what they thought was best for the band, but sometimes you just have to step away from the espresso machine, take a deep breath and realise that you can't stage manage the entire worldwide media," said Quietus editor John Doran.

It would seem that the band agree. Their statement goes on to claim that they have since treated Q Prime to a "managerial ear spank" which sounds rather scary, although not as scary as "managerial ear spunk" which is how the Guardian Music team read it the first time around.

Anyhow, the band have now resolved the problem by linking to the sites cheeky enough to, er, praise the band's new record.