Album Review: Metallica - 72 Seasons

Seven years passed until the successor to Hardwired… to Self-Destruct, Metallica’s eleventh album, arrived. Curiously, the album has exactly the same duration as its predecessor, one hour and 17 minutes.

Album Review: Metallica - 72 Seasons

Seven years passed until the successor to Hardwired… to Self-Destruct, Metallica’s eleventh album, arrived. Curiously, the album has exactly the same duration as its predecessor, one hour and 17 minutes.

In November 2022 we had the first preview of this new album that culminated in 4 singles from the band.

The album opens with the main theme, which starts with some riffs that seem to charge the battery of the album and show a still energetic Metallica. Shadows Follow aims to continue the same high-energy line of an old San Francisco Bay Area band, a song that shines with James Hetfield’s raspy voice.

Since it came out in single format, Screaming Suicide didn’t seem like a bad song to me, but next to the previous two, it honestly doesn’t have much to offer, except for the really catchy chorus and Robert Trujillo’s powerful bass. Sleepwalk My Life Away opens with Ulrich’s galloping drums accompanied by a forceful and marked bass from Trujillo, who tries to slow down a bit, as in You Must Burn! which sometimes makes you remember when Sad But True crushed the world.

Halfway through the album we found Lux Aeterna, the first preview we had of the album and since its release it reminded us of those glorious years of Kill Em All and Ride The Lightning, a fast piece worthy of the band’s first albums.

Crowed Of Barbed Wire opens brutally in such a way that Lars Ulrich could easily face his detractors, despite the fact that the song is not exactly fast. Chasing Light is one of those songs that doesn’t try to emulate any previous Metallica work, one of those songs with a fresh air that has all the hallmarks of Metallica, just like with Too Far Gone?

If Darkness Had a Son shows an intro very much in the style of …And Justice For All, however since its release and now I confirm, the song at times gets lost and one wonders where the band really wants to take us with it , making it a subject that seems to be a simple filler. Room Of Mirrors enjoys a vitality and freshness, especially in the chorus, although the theme is honestly not spectacular.

For the end of the album we find a track of just over 11 minutes, starting slowly and forcefully, with a very precise tempo, a very hard rocker song (at times bluesy), what makes it more interesting is in the middle of the song. song, a bass by Robert Trujillo that shows the blues influences of the bassist, with hints very much in the style of Black Sabbath’s Hand Of Doom, Kirk Hammett’s solo is heard with so much feeling that he manages to take a nostalgic trip through each one of them. the band’s albums (with the exception of St. Anger).

Although 72 Seasons is not a spectacular or perfect album, it is a work that shows that the band still has energy and creativity to compose riffs that can become classics in their concerts, and makes the band of Hetfield and Ulrich appreciate and continue enjoying them while we can.

72 Seasons – Metallica 8.5/10

Track list:
72 Seasons
Shadows Follow
screaming suicide
Sleepwalk My Life Away
You Must Burn!
Aeternal Lux
Crown of Barbed Wire
Chasing Light
If Darkness Had a Son
Too Far Gone?
Room Of Mirrors
Inamorata

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