DAMNIT.
NO.
WHY DID I DECIDE TO DO THIS. IT BURNS. I WOULD HONESTLY RATHER HAVE WEASELS RIP MY FLESH THAN LISTEN TO THIS ALBUM AGAIN.
But
alas, I must review this... "album" out of self-hatred and because I
said I would in the last AS post. So, without further ado...
First,
let me get this out of the way to appease naysayers (if there are even
any who try to defend this album): I did listen to this whole album.
TWICE. When I put myself through these albums I always put aside any
preexisting notion of album quality, listen with a fresh mind, and try
to find the best of it. But, both listens turned up empty. You heard me
right. There is not a SINGLE REDEEMING QUALITY to this album. NONE
WHATSOEVER.
The production is alright, I guess. I mean,
it's overproduced and clipped to hell because "METAL IS LOUD \m/", but
at least you can hear the instruments well enough, except for the bass,
but this is Metallica after all. The concept could have worked if done
by a group of musicians competent enough to actually pull it off
convincingly. The album is based off of a series of controversial plays
by the German playwright Frank Wedekind, and that in itself is loaded
with potential! The stories are certainly dark and gritty, making it
ripe for a metal concept album, and the play aspect makes it fitting for
lengthy, progressive epics, recurring motifs, and other such thing.
Hell, if this album were done by, say, Opeth, it'd be a masterpiece!
I can never not find a use for this picture.
But
here's the thing: Metallica, with their collaboration with Lou Reed,
are trying to be something they aren't. They're a thrash metal band,
first and foremost (and a suffocatingly generic one at that); they
simply aren't suited to the lengthy compositions that this type of
subject material calls for. Before the album released, there was some
possibility that Lou Reed, in all of his polarizing weirdness, might be
able to bring the album past mediocrity, and if it did turn out to be
shit, it'd certainly be spectacularly shitty. But, unfortunately, it
seems like the bulk of the music was done by Metallica. Lou Reed's
biggest contribution to this release is vocals. I know he's Lou Reed and
he's supposed to be polarizing and avant-garde and all of that type of
stuff, but here, he simply sounds like an old man, and that, combined
with the lyrical content of the album, raises the album to new heights
of disturbing mental imagery. Take the first track, Brandenburg Gate,
and envision this: C-major tuned acoustic chords start the track off,
and it all sounds swell, maybe even exciting, when SUDDENLY YOU GET AN
OLD MAN STATING THAT "I WOULD CUT MY LEGS AND TITS OFF WHEN I THINK OF
BORIS KARLOFF AND KINSKI"
And that's among the least cringeworthy of Lou Reed's vocal sections.
For
me, it's not the lyrical content itself, I mean it's certainly
unnerving, but there's a difference between unnerving to get across the
intended concept, and then there's creepy-perverted old dude unnerving.
Maybe if these lines were done by a guest female singer or something,
it'd be much improved. But nope, we're stuck with Lou Reed and James
Hetfield doing this. With James Hetfield's backing vocals repeating
"Small-town giiiiiiirrrrllll!" amidst Lou Reed's creepy old-dude vocals,
you'd think that this was an elaborate joke on the fans. And let's not
even delve into Hetfield's now-infamous outburst of "I am the table!" on
The View. Special mention goes to Little
Dog, the second track of disc two, for being pure, unadulterated WHAT
THE FUCK IS THIS WHY IS THIS EVEN A THING.
And
then there's the repetition. Oh, GODS, the repetition. On the fourth
track, Mistress Dread, the first riff is an almost decent
Metallica-caliber one, finally kicking the album into the long-awaited
thrash metal experience that Metallica are known for! ...And then it
keeps going. And going. For the rest of the song. Which also happens to
be seven-minutes long. Later, the second-disc song Dragon seems to show
some promise with the building-up of the central riff and the increasing
heaviness and speed, but again, it's the same riff being repeated for
11 minutes, UNINTERRUPTED. It's literally the only riff in the song!
There's verse-chorus-verse song structure with some repetition, and then
there's second-wave black metal repetition, AND THEN THERE'S THIS.
Sure, the repetition might not be as bad if the riffs were some really
great ones, but these are among the most simplistic and generic riffs
that Metallica has ever released. (Even by Metallica standards!) That,
combined with Lou Reed's aforementioned creepy-old-guy vocals already
negates 95% of anything this album had going for it. Case-in-point, the
final track, Junior Dad. It's twenty minutes long, and at least ten of
those minutes consist of a strings section playing the exact same
chords. The orchestra apparently does perform throughout the album, but I
barely noticed it, and it's a damn shame that they were consigned to
THIS.
It's
boring. It's pointless. It's poorly-executed. It's Lulu, the
much-maligned collaboration between Metallica and Lou Reed, and
rightfully so as I have borne witness to. Some concepts are better left
to memory, for the sake of mankind. I'd say it deserves to be heard just
for how much of an atrocity it is, but hearing this entire album is a
fate I would wish on no man. If you want experimental Metallica, check
the Load albums. If you want Metallica with an orchestra, check the
S&M live performance. Spare your sanity and forget that this album
exists.
