Coffin Shaker: Metallica – Hardwired…To Self Destruct

Here we go again with Metallica. Once such a cornerstone outfit in heavy metal music, Metallica has certainly undergone their mutations over the last twenty six years. While a lot of this was covered in my review ofSt. Anger, I find it necessary to revisit for their newest offering, Hardwired…To Self Destruct, an album I greeted with great caution and am so far immensely puzzled by. I can’t help but feel confused by this album as a whole, all twelve songs of the two-disc arrangement. Unlike fuller, more oppressive two-disc albums like Iron Maiden’s Book of Souls, Hardwired isn’t more than 80 minutes long, but rather is a 77 minute affair purposely broken up onto two discs, an odd move in the current time where music can be digitally acquired and stored, which makes the two discs, even if done for some kind of thematic reason, totally unnecessary. This isn’t the days of tapes, where too long a tape was more prone to breakage over time, and there is absolutely not enough content here for two CDs, which hold 80 minutes of music apiece. So, what the fuck, Metallica? 

Coffin Shakers: Metallica – St. Anger

There is a moment in the making of video for The Phantom Menace where, considering young actors to portray childhood Anakin Skywalker, George Lucas decides on a particular youngster that I am not going to rag on here, but was clearly not the best choice. After making this proclamation, yes man Rick McCallum opens his mouth and a stream of congratulations and agreements pour out, while a