Metallica released 72 Seasons, today, the band’s 11^th studio album just a few months shy of the 40^th anniversary of their debut album Kill ‘Em All.

The fathers of  heavy metal unloaded four songs off 72 Seasons in recent months giving fans a taste of what to expect on this 12-song nearly movie-long record coming in just under 80 minutes. Just one song under four minutes, just two songs under five minutes and seven songs more than six minutes with the longest closing out the album at 11 minutes. This, a feat, not unbecoming of the band.

Like many successful long-running bands, Metallica refused to fall back on their beginnings by releasing Ride the Lightning and Master of Puppets every other year until they burned out or faded to black. Instead, Metallica grafted in their thrash metal roots to their heavy metal genre even if at the expense of losing early fans.

The band’s initial plans after the WorldWide Tour ended in 2019 in support of Hardwired..to Self-Destruct, was to enter the studio sooner rather than later. Then the world shut down. Metallica used the coronavirus pandemic, which also canceled tour dates into 2020, to focus on writing like so many other bands. Thus, 72 Seasons arrives more than six years after 2016’s  Hardwired…

The band’s longest running line-up of 20 years – in singer and guitarist James Hetfield, drummer Lars Ulrich, guitarist Kirk Hammett and Robert Trujillo on bass – pour riff after riff, speedy guitar solos, time signature changes and a mess of drums and cymbals into 72 Seasons, an album that might rise to one of Metallica’s loudest and hardest, and perhaps most profound.

“Recording gave us a purpose in lockdown,” Ulrich said in an interview with Metal Hammer. “It was also a way to feel as though we were communicating with each other and trying to find some light in the dark. Feeling you could turn the energy and despair of those couple of years into something positive.”

Hardly a dreary album nor is it angry, in fact, lots going on in this full metal record that mostly pleases even if various dynamic melodies get interrupted by sometimes accompanying sluggish tempos. 72 Seasons presents a core of vigorous hard rock music while embracing some modern accents and re-introducing a little tone from their past. Rather complex in nature, at times, so don’t expect a quick sit down. Case in point, 72 Seasons opens with the title track which took multiple listens to fully develop upon its release two weeks ago as well as “If Darkness Had a Son” which dropped more than a month ago. Expect a similar experience with “You Must Burn!,” a slower cut but not in the vein of “Sad But True,” the to and fro of “Crown of Barbed Wire” and “Too Far Gone?.” Not so with the already released “Lux Æterna,” and “Screaming Suicide” along with the fresh and quicker takes of “Shadows Follow,” “Sleepwalk My Life Away” which starts out with a bounding bass line eventually sliding into bellowing guitar riffs, and the brisk “Room of Mirrors.” Even “Chasing Light” which stammers a bit before it really gets going unfolds into a killer tune. Finally, stay with “Inamorata.” Like three songs in one, and no doubt longtime fans will recognize the “Orion” like delivery midway through.

72 Seasons puts Metallica in rarefied company by releasing this mostly slick moving, comprehensive record on the tail-end of their 40 year plus career. The bold 72 Seasons contains all that made Metallica a national metal treasure from the fast-paced thrashy “Lux Æterna” to the head-banging chords of “If Darkness Had a Son.”

Metallica tours 72 Seasons beginning April 27 through September 2024 with two dates in each scheduled city featuring different setlists each night similar to their 40^th anniversary concerts streamed live worldwide from San Francisco in 2021.

Grade: B+

Metallica 72 Seasons Song List:

1. 72 Seasons
2. Shadows Follow
3. Screaming Suicide
4. Sleepwalk My Life Away
5. You Must Burn!
6. Lux Æterna
7. Crown of Barbed Wire
8. Chasing Light
9. If Darkness Had a Son
10. Too Far Gone?
11. Room of Mirrors
12. Inamorata