An aggressive and vivacious return.
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10
Hope for a tenth Metallica’s album – and their first since 2008’s Death Magnetic – has been fleeting at best, despite the metal icons continuing to tour and most notably headlining at Reading, Leeds, and Glastonbury. Every interview mentioning new material popped up before slithering back into the unknown without explanation, but news of a double LP titled Hardwired…To Self-Destruct for November release has been accompanied by a terrifically ferocious lead single. A triumphant return for the metal juggernauts, ‘Hardwired’ is a real sign of ambition, perfectly setting up what may be to come with a whole record of the same and having listeners salivating over such a prospect.
Immediately, ‘Hardwired’ launches into a thrash metal style that the band originally made so popular. James Hetfield’s rhythm guitar chugs away in perfect synchronicity with Lars Ulrich’s drumming as Kirk Hammett riffs over the top and Robert Trujillo churns away beneath it all. ‘Hardwired’ explodes into life immediately, only rising. The remainder carries on much the same, rocketing by efficiently and aggressively as one of their shorter tracks at just over three minutes long. Hammett and Hetfield’s guitar parts are similar for the entirety of the song, thereby causing it to like one extended riff-off, but it works a treat as the unmistakable energy of the whole band burns through. This is old school Metallica meeting Death Magnetic and it works wonders.
‘Hardwired’ is out now via Blackened Recordings
