STACK #222 April 2023

FEATURE MUSIC

METALLICA GRAB THE VINYL CRUNCH BY THE (DEVIL) HORNS

A s US vinyl sales soar to a 35-year high, the heavy metal mavens have taken a decisive step in ensuring LP production keeps apace. Any vinyl fan can preach on the last few pandemicky years having caused major clogs in the manufacturing system: release dates pushed back, smaller print runs elbowed out of the

queue in favour of bigger titles, shipments left chilling on the dock, and all-over congestion where getting our eager hands on vinyl is concerned. It’s extra frustrating because there are more and more vinyl fans out there: for the first time since 1987, vinyl sales have outstripped CD sales in the US (according to a recent year

end report from the Recording Industry Association of America (the RIAA). Enter Metallica, who have decided on an ”If you can’t beat ’em, buy ’em” approach. The beloved rockers have just purchased Furnace Record Pressing, a Virginian vinyl production plant that has, in fact, pressed Metallica LPs for

15 years – which makes this a definite ’helping your mates out of the mire’ sort of move. Furnace Record Pressing chief executive and founder Eric Astor told Billboard: ”Knowing our long-term future is secured, while also being better able to take advantage of growth opportunities, is really exciting.” ZKR

Master of Puppets , with the passing of the act’s revered bass player Cliff Burton (who died in a crash while travelling in the band’s tour bus). But not even this terrible misfortune could halt the momentum of the musical tour de force. With the appointment of replacement bassist Jason Newsted, in 1988 the band released their most experimental and ambitious work to date, ...And Justice for All (equipped with a controversial studio mix that all but omitted Newsted’s bass guitar contributions). No one could have predicted what would come next with the 1991 release of Metallica’s self-titled ’Black Album’; the seismic shockwaves it sent throughout the music industry changed the landscape – and the definition of ’crossover act’ – forever. Spearheaded by the record’s lead single Enter Sandman , Metallica were catapulted out of the limits of their genre scene and into global superstardom. The Black Album was the first record to depart from the group’s ’thrash metal’ roots, and embrace a more accessible and universally appealing hard-rock sound. That sound resonated with a new breed of Metallica fans, previously untapped by earlier material. In the late ’90s and early ’00s came a string of experimental records, released to mixed reviews from critics and (more often than not) lukewarm reception from fans, both new and old alike. Lars Ulrich and James Hetfield have both been transparent about their hard drug and alcohol abuse during these years; the turbulent era was documented in fascinating detail in the wildly successful 2004 film Some Kind of Monster. Then, in 2008, ninth album Death Magnetic signalled a return to Metallica’s thrash metal origins, a theme that continued on 2016’s Hardwired…to Self-Destruct (much to the delight of Metallica’s devoted faithful).

DECODING THE COVER (AND THAT CHARRED GUITAR )

M etallica frontman James Hetfield has explained the title and concept of the band’s new album thusly: ”72 seasons. The first 18 years of our lives, that form our true or false selves. The concept that we were told ’who we are’ by our parents... Much of our adult experience is reenactment or reaction to these childhood experiences: prisoners of childhood, or breaking free of those bondages we carry.” That last sentiment of escaping a childhood prison is depicted quite literally in 72 Seasons ’ cover art, with a wooden crib all but busted open by some sort of Baby Bowser. Strewn about the floor are many objects – blackened, broken and melted – you’d be likely to find in the bedroom of the average American kid between the ages of 0 and 18: toy racing cars, a teddy bear, a soccer ball, a skateboard, beer cans, a pack of cigarettes, some dumbbells... and right in the centre, a guitar. There’s been a lot of yammer over what this guitar signifies. Some thought it to be Hetfield’s first guitar, but uber-fans quickly countered that the musician never owned a Stratocaster as a child or teen, and in fact didn’t possess any Fender guitar at all until the mid-’90s, when he played the intro to The Unforgiven II (from 1997 album Reload ) on a reissue of the ’52 Telecaster. It’s since been posited the instrument is actually supposed to be one of Kirk Hammett’s most treasured possessions in youth: a guitar he affectionately nicknamed ’Edna’. Edna was a cheap(er) Strat copy created by Japanese company Fernandes, and a then-20-year-old Hammett got his paws on one mere

Above: Kirk Hammett (second from left) with his guitar Edna, on the cover of Metallica’s 1987 EP The $5.98 E.P. – Garage Days Re-Revisited .

Below: Close-up of the guitar on the cover of 72 Seasons .

months before the call that would change his life: Dave Mustaine was a hen’s tooth away from being booted from Metallica, so did Kirk want to audition for the slot? If it is Edna, it’s a beaut throwback to the earliest days of Metallica, when Ride the Lightning was morphing from a twinkle in the band’s eyes to the goliath of thrash it was to become. ZKR

Now, on upcoming release 72 Seasons (the third of the band’s records to feature Newsted replacement Robert Trujillo), Metallica continue on their warpath to musical supremacy; Metallica sound energised, and more focused than they have in years.

72 Seasons

by Metallica is out April 14 via Blackened Recordings/ Universal.

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