ALBUMMER! 61: Metallica's "Death Magnetic"

Not sure if this is mentioned in the episode, but I recently gave this another listen using only the Guitar Hero: Metallica tracks. They weren’t compressed and loudened to technology’s furthest extent, and as a result they’re way more listenable. Unfortunately, most of the songs are still way too long and disjointed to be an overall positive experience.

“My Apocalypse” is my favorite Metallica song since the 1980s, though.

Not at all surprising, but Jonah is damn good at podcasting!

When this album came out I was prepared for a disaster. I still remember the night it leaked and frantically downloading because there was scuttlebutt that it was actually decent. Turns out I LOVE this album. Poor mastering acknowledged, it's fast, fun and downright heavy. It's not a classic in the way that early Metallica is, but the thumping rhythms have kept this in my gym playlists for over a decade.

The album cover will always be a spooky vagina to me. Happy Halloween!

ooo emily i love that turnstile shirt

An album recorded at Sound City Studio shouldn’t sound this compressed. My Apocalypse is pretty good.

I haven't listened to this since it came out and giving it a quick skim now, I'm reminded of my opinion back then: Almost every track starts with a medley of like 10 different riffs and then they invariably pick the worst ones to base the rest of a 7 minute song around.

The best part is the opening of The Judas Kiss where it briefly sounds like Voivod, so you remember you can just turn the album off and go listen to them instead.

First Kevin Murphy and Bill Corbett, and now Jonah Ray!? Giant Bomb and MST really do go great together.

One of my favorite Metallica albums, full stop.

I remember downloading this album and giving it a listen while commenting each track with my longtime highschool friend I discovered Metallica with. Each song reminds me of another Metallica song, but after St. Anger and many years of waiting for something new, it gave us what we wanted. All Nightmare Long is a banger, S&R and My Apocalypse close the album like they knew how to. The weakest track, as usual, is the forgetable Unforgiven.

Great podcasting guys, glad you are here and very nice seing Emily on the Bombathon!

I'm probably alone here, but I'm disappointed that the My Chemical Romance date in my town had Turnstile as the opener and not Devil Master.

Jonah Ray was a very fun guest

The first time I listened to Death Magnetic was through Guitar Hero 3 because the entire album was released as DLC for it. haha

Jonah is cool, and the music video he directed for Mikal Cronin is one of my faves!

This is the best Metallica album since Justice.
Great show, cheers!

Love the crew, was excited for this one, wish they talked about the album more?

@bodyofanamerican: also, All Nightmare Long rules, you maniacs. Though I feel Lucy’s Metallica overload.

I think the thing with Death Magnetic, is that as an album there's a small batch of 'good' songs and there and a collection of really good parts in other tracks later on, but they're not cohesive and could easily by shuffled into other songs. Its reflective of a larger problem with latter Metallica for me, which is that I think they need an 'editor'. Someone to sit down and just go 'the song is long because you have a couple of awesome sections that you let sit, not because you opened with forty-two different changes'. Of course I'd also love if someone sat Lars down and told him to get out of that rigid 4/4 stomp he always plays.

As a result you just wind up with an album that is too long and aggressively bland with maybe three songs that would be fun to see live. The fact that everyone would rather talk about anything else on the podcast this time around shows it.

Good luck with Hardwired. I still cannot will myself to listen to a whole double albums worth.

Part of the reason people started dunking on the When We Were Young fest was that they were apparently advertising bands for the show before even contacting them. There were a few band that came out after the first wave of hype like "uhhh we're doing this show??"

Hey, the video player no longer seems to work