To get the obvious out of the way, to complain that this album doesn't sound like "Master Of Puppets" or even the Black album is like complaining the last Underworld album doesn't sound like "Underneigth The Radar". It's a valid complaint but you just can't review this album with that in mind. Metallica have changed completely. They don't play Swedish hair metal anymore. I don't what this is that they play, but it's ain't Swedish and it ain't got no hair.

Firstly, the production on this album is terrible. By that I mean that it sounds like it has been taped on to cassette a few times, had the EQ set to "munge" and then dumped to CD. All the parts are clear when they're supposed to be, but it's a shock. It's something that isn't supposed to be. But it is definitely deliberate.

I have a theory that it's been released this way because songs from cassette tape do not MP3 very well (you get lots of swimmy/swishy artifacts due to the hiss). I find it hard to believe even Metallica could be that lame.

Either way, it's deliberate, it's supposed to sound like this for whatever reason... I'm willing to ignore it.

Although... there are places where it isn't just the sound that is off. You can hear many places where it sounds like they've cut and pasted songs together. This is never good. Unless you're Radiohead. (Note: Metallica are not Radiohead). I have no problem with the copy/paste, I have a problem with the fact you can tell.

Secondly, much of the singing on this album is very rough. James is yelling a lot of the time and when he does he tends to deliberately outstretch his voice, thus putting it a little out of tune. Again, it's deliberate. It's metal. It's supposed to sound harsh. In this case I can't forgive it... in places the album sounds live, like they just didn't care...

Thirdly, I'd personally like to take Lars out and give him drumming leasons. It's not that he sucks... it's just that he sucks at making up interesting drumming tracks. In much of the album Lars has decided "this bit has to be heavy" and thus "I must bash drums as hard and fast as possible". Lars... you are wrong. You just sound like some lame teenager. And, the production on the drums isn't the best either. It's too raw, you can hear too much... but I believe that is just personal taste so I'm willing to ignore that too.

Fourthly... lyrics. Where James isn't screaming for random reasons he actually sounds OK. Some places I'm hearing Alice In Chains and heck even Nirvana. All of which I like. The lyrics aren't ultra political or deep, but some of them have some real passion. James sounds genuinely pissed off in quite a few of these tracks. In over half the songs I want to slap him for being so crap, but he's surprised me for the other half.

Overall this album is a shock. It's nothing like their last albums, not even Load or Reload are anything like this. It's so damn different to anything they've done before... and different to anything I've listened to before. It's all over the place. It's freaky. It's completely wrong... but some of it is pretty good.

I don't know what to make of this... I think I like it.