metallica
i've been SO about metal recently. metallica, especially. ever since people have started talking in internet-land about how their new album is a their hardest thing since "justice," i've been hoping that those ugly "load" days are going to be just a nasty memory, and the band that i grew up worshipping were truly snapping out of it.

it was with this hope in my heart that i watched the "mtv icon" metallica special tuesday night. i knew they had played a new song there, and i wanted to hear it. long story short, all the bands that played smoked royal supreme pole, and i hated it. the metallica documentary parts were cool, however. and then metallica came on. they did a medley. not too bad. i'll let them have the medley because this thing was supposed to be about celebrating their whole oeuvre, so that was fine. and then...the new song. "frantic," it's called. they only showed the first two minutes of it, but i've got to say, it was pretty fucking hard.

seriously, it made "until it sleeps" and all that SHIT sound like tiny tim. really. it was pretty damned hard. lowtuned, but not in that nu-metal way, james hetfield doing chugga-cugga patterns on the low open string...it was metal, man. it was hard metal. and i'm pretty excited to hear the new record. the only thing about the song was that the vocals and lyrics didn't excite me at all. hopefully it sounds better on the album.

put it this way: there's definitely some truth to all of the talk that's been going around. time will tell if i can get into metallica 2003, but i'm willing to forgive and forget if they can just give me a bit of the buzz that i get with justice and puppets. i will forgive them for sucking for ten years if they can make me feel that old feeling, even just a bit of it. come on, metal masters. i'm paying attention again.