Frantic (Elektra Studio Live)

We are in the control-room of the studio making ourselves comfortable. The air is vibrating with excitement, and then? BAM!! The first song (working title: Frantic) kicks in with hypnotic, almost industrial Slayer-riffs. What the fuck is going on? “You live it or lie it”, chants James Hetfield and goes on with “my lifestyle determines my death style”. It is ultra-tight metalcore like it has never been performed before. Lars Ulrich’s fat drum-sound is replaced with an oilrig-similar snare that’s usually reminiscent of robotic industrial-metal. “Do I have the strength?”, a wondering Hetfield screams in the middle of the chaos. It is a maddening Blitzkrieg strategy with attack-waves of battering riffs, attacking from every angle for five minutes and 54 seconds.

I’m not joking.

The war has just begun, and I really mean THE WAR, because this music would be the perfect soundtrack to the media coverage of the war on Ira. The title-track blazes away with a ultra-fast bulldozer-mosh that leaves Max Cavalera far behind. We are talking monster-metallized punk from another planet! We are talking beyond sound-speed, especially regarding the drum-work. The double-bass pounds away mercilessly and Lars Ulrich’s use of the snare are almost –get shi!- blast-beats!! It’s going to be interesting seeing him trying to repeat this live – if the dane is usually soaked from sweat and carried to the lodge after traditional concerts, then he’s going to need an oxygen-mask and hospital personnel to wake him back to life after this. Following this amazing intro comes a softer part where Hetfield sings “St. Anger around my neck, he never gets respect.” The Producer Bob Rock (also on bass) assures me that this is the calmest, most stripped-down part on the whole album. Wow! A riff similar to “Creeping Death” follows. Towards the end of the song he screams “I need to set my anger free”… and this is exactly what he and Metallica does: releasing all their anger.

I’m not joking.

Song three starts up like an updated “Ride the Lightning”: Fat thrash-metal in midtempo speed. Sepultura’s “Roots”-era sound reminiscent in this song, with the refrain “It world” repeated again and again. Before the song ends at five minutes and 51 seconds, Hetfield shouts “enough, enough, enough”.

I’m not joking.

Have you missed the complex song-structures of “And Justice for All”? Compared to this around eight minutes long piece (working title “Monster”), the songs of the 1988 album seem more like simple Ramones’ ditties. A progressive blanket of sound that warms like a massive and super-intricate Tool, only a thousand times heavier! Hetfield chants over a delicious part that goes into what could be called a chorus with some use of fantasy: “We are the people, are we the people?”. There is actually something here that could be called groove, not entirely unlike Pantera although vastly heavier. The guitars are insane, so evil, so incredible! The fact is that there isn’t anything remotely like a traditional guitar-solo in any of these five songs. Hetfield and Kirk Hammett use their instruments like surgical tools. The guitars shriek and scream as if Tom Morello and Kerry King made a deal and decided to take the Devil’s music not one but ten steps further.

I’m not Joking.

The most wicked part is however the last, whose working-name is “All Within My Hands”. A very strange piece with an instrumental intro. The tempo is ultra-fast, taking so many twists and turns that you get dizzy. “All Within My Hands” is shouted and then sung in an Alice in Chains manner. And the ending? Oh man! Like a possessed madman Hetfield screams “Kill kill kill kill!!” ad absurdum – we’re talking deranged shrieks coming from a psychopathic Tom Araya. You’d think it was over after that. But no. It is like watching a heavy-as-lead finale it winds down at eight minutes and 55 seconds.

I’m not joking.

20 journalists finally leave the control-room and look at each other. No one needs say anything; the looks say it all: What in god’s name have we just experienced? That Metallica, once tired & old, have made a complete 180, and now sound like a bun of hormone-reeking bucks in heat, is the most incredible thing that’s happened in music history.

I’m not joking.

(Martin Carlson, Close-up magazine, reporting exclusively from the studio where Metallica were recording their album “St. Anger”)

■ Kirk Hammett

■ James Hetfield

■ Colin Mitchell – Camera Operator

■ Jean Pellerin – Editing, Camera Operator

■ Bob Rock – Producer, Engineer, Mixing

■ Lars Ulrich

■ Robert Trujillo

■ Pushead – Cover Illustration

■ Anton Corbijn – Photography

■ Dana Marshall – Producer

■ Mike Gillies – Digital Engineer, Assistant

■ Wayne Isham – Director

■ Paul Owen – Monitors

■ Ryan Smith – Camera Operator

■ Vlado Meller – Mastering

■ Scott Cunningham – Production Coordination

■ Jason Bridges – Editing Assistant

℗ 2003 Metallica. © 2003 Metallica. The copyright in this sound recording is owned by Metallica under exclusive licence to Universal International Music BV. A Universal Music Company. All rights of the manufacturer and of the owner of the work produced reserved. Unauthorised copying, hiring, lending, public performance and broadcasting of the recorded work prohibited. Made in the EU.