Before I get into the meaty details of the music, let's talk about just the release of this album. Early in the year, Old Man Lars started talking about the new album and teasing a release this year. None of us Metallica fans really held our breath. Yeah, we knew we'd hear new Metallica soon enough, but years of teases and delayed releases kept us, well me for sure, skeptic. Then, out of nowhere on August 18th, 2016, Metallica release the single "Hardwired", alongside the full details of a double album to come out in November. Uh, what? Really? Oh, and the single "Hardwired" was what we like to call "Classic Metallica" and has a hard, crunchy, and fast thrashy sound to it.
Now, the day has come, it's November 18th and the new album is out. SPOILER ALERT! It's a great album! But I'm still not going to talk about the music. Not quite yet. The album is out and you can not only listen to the album, but you can watch it, too! Metallica decided to release upon the world a music video for each and every one of the 12 tracks on Hardwired... To Self-Destruct on YouTube within the 48 hours heading into the worldwide release of the album. And these aren't just random ass videos, they're full on productions very well done. (I could easily do a blog post / review for each video on its own. I have included a YouTube link to the playlist of all 12 videos at the bottom of this review)
