metallized – blogging for metal

Ok, here we go.

Today Blabbermouth posted a short clip of James Hetfield mocking Dave Mustane’s singing. Time to compare the two bands’ latest releases.

United Abominations

One thing’s for sure, no one can deny that United Abominations is a metal album through and through. You may think it doesn’t bring anything new to the table, which is a fair criticism, but it’s full of great metal riffs. In a sense, it’s “easy listening” for the metallized, but it effortlessly flows and is full of great hooks. Solos are rock solid, drums are competent, and Mustane’s vocals are professional.

The mixing is near-perfect. All the instruments are audible, there is no saturation at any volume. The drums sound great. Eh, maybe some waving in the volume level in the songs United Abominations and Gears of War. That’s it.

Death Magnetic

Some good riffs. Really, there are some good riffs somewhere in there. Ok, at times they sound a bit country and you sort of see the Las Vegas permanent show coming on the horizon. Regardless, it’s certainly better than St.Anger (the only way for them to have done worse would have been to ape the Backstreet Boys). But I must say this: there is no fluidity in this album. Most of the songs feel like they are collages of riffs the band overthought and overdesigned to be metal. Sadly, overall they failed. It’s a mix of hard rock and country, with some Master of Puppets thrown into the mix. It just doesn’t cut it. It’s forced, it doesn’t cut it. Come on, don’t you feel a little bit uncomfortable seeing Hetfield with his brand new Venom t-shirt? As for his vocals, it sounds like he’s trying his best to imitate Beatallica. Ouch.

Lars Ulrich continues to argue that there is nothing wrong with the mixing of Death Magnetic, pleas for mercy from their sound engineer notwithstanding. This is insulting. Just listen to the Guitar Hero version of the album and even if you’re half-deaf you’ll hear that Lars is full of shit.

I don’t think that at this point Metallica is in a position to look down on Megadeth and make fun of Mustane. Megadeth had their share of crappy albums (try to listen to Risk in its entirety in one go–but unload the gun and store away ther ammo first, you might hurt yourself). Metallica has been on a downward spiral for almost 18 years now. Their half-decent new album does not match up to most of what younger bands routinely turn out. That Metallica can sell more copies of Death Magnetic than all of them conbined is just sad, and a testament to the power of spin, ad money, and blind followingnah!

Let the hate begin in the comments below.