Metallica’s Lars Ulrich: We’re ‘Seven, Eight Songs’ into the New Album

2012-01-09

Story by Anne Erickson

Metallica’s new album will be a shorter metal injection of songs

Are Metallica going punk? Well, it’s too early to call it either way, but according to guitarist Kirk Hammett and drummer Lars Ulrich, the metal band’s next album may bring shorter, tighter songs, which is often characteristic of the punk genre. Long gone is the progressive metal of “Death Magnetic.” Instead, Lars says the new Metallica songs are “more groove-oriented” and “heavier version of what we were doing in the early ‘90s.”

“If ‘Death Magnetic’ was a logical successor to [1988’s] ‘…And Justice For All,’ the next album will be a heavier Black Album,” Hammett explained to Rolling Stone (via Blabbermouth), referring to the band’s 1991 self-titled release. “We’re not going to the depths of complexity that we did for ‘Death Magnetic.’ The stuff we’re coming up with is more groove-oriented, a heavier version of what we were doing in the early ‘90s.”

Ulrich seconded Hammett’s statement: “When people talk about the old stuff, they think ‘Justice.’” But look at ‘Harvester of Sorrow’ on that album. It’s a fairly simple five-minute song. And ‘Fuel’ [off 1997’s ‘Reload’] is an absolute scorcher live. Right now, I’m thinking shorter, more to-the-point.”

The Rick Rubin-produced set is already pretty far along, and Ulrich promises a metal injection like never before. “We’re about seven, eight songs into it,” Ulrich said. “We do it in rounds. We come up with something, we leave it, go to the next thing, come up with something basic, leave it and circle back around. Next month we’ll go back and start embellishing: ‘Let’s double that one part and come up with a middle bit.’”

 





Anne Erickson
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