Just before the hit: The retro and introspective new album from the world’s biggest metal band.
The 72 seasons of the album title do not allude to the length of time it took to complete the eleventh studio effort. Rather, Metallica define the quasi-conceptual substructure of the album, which is based on the formative first 18 years of a person’s life, which rolls over quite heavy therapeutic chunks that find their crushing equivalent in 80 minutes of playing time.
Musically retrospectively, too, there are throwback riffs to the mid-80s (“Crown Of Barbed Wire”) or the phase with the greatest impact on the masses, such as the “Enter Sandman” update “Sleepwalk My Life Away”, whereby today one takes the last step towards Hit saves. Forgoing ballad material, it’s up to the great finale of “Inamorata” with a middle section reduced to bass and cymbal rattles to wrest a dynamic twist from the predominant mid-tempo ride.
72 SEASONS is a Metallica album that isn’t made for the early ’90s renegade grail keepers nor the mainstream audience that’s joined at the same time – but for those who have remained loyal to the band for the past quarter century.