Hear the whole thing at Metallica.com in McStreamy tin-foil quality. If you dare!!
The site also has lots of 10 second samples from the album, all of which sound pretty good to me. Really. But I'll wait for the album to come out before I make any actual calls. My expectations are still set at super-low.
The single... eh. As many have said, it starts like a mix of Unforgiven and Bleeding Me (that's a bad thing) but ends like Metallica playing a medley of left over Load and Justice riffs.
That's an OK thing.
You can buy a version in reasonable quality at iTunes if you can't wait two weeks.
We had breakfast at a local Croisant Express (Mill Street). They're everywhere, like Starbucks, if you were in a town that didn't have Starbucks because there was already a massive coffee chain (Dome).
We spent the morning walking around, checking out Hill Street with Empire Toys and Freaks + Geeks, then up to Northbridge, which is empty (like zombie empty) during the day. We had a Brass Monkey Stout @ the Brass Monkey.
We walked forever looking for food. It took so long because we were looking for the "sushi train place" we saw the day before, but settled on Nao Sushi and Izakaya in the mall.
Finally, we walked back to the Gallery district, a block sized section of town just North of the train station with the Art Gallery, Museum and Library.
We tried the Art Gallery first, at which we were suitably unimpressed. The Art Gallery shop was excellent, as was the coffee at the cafe, but as for most galleries... it depends on what is on show.
Next door is The Museum. Currently housed in a late 19th century building, it's like how all museums should be. I loved it.
One huge room was filled with drawer after drawer of samples. Butterflies, bones, birds, bugs, spiders, stick insects, minerals, old coins, old bottles. I opened almost every drawer. To add to the surprise, sometimes they were empty!
But it's hard to go past the mammal room. A horrific old-style display hall, complete with glass cases filled with badly stuffed animals and skeletons, green carpet. Pure awesomeness. Exactly like museums are in my head, but never are any more. The dinosaur section was also great, but very small.
We left at closing time (were politely ushered out actually) and went back to our room. We had dinner at Bobby Dazzler's which was as tacky looking as it sounds, but tasty. While walking there we noticed how much Japanese food is in town and vow to try it all out.
Why doesn't Perth have any 7-11 stores? And why is Pancake Parlour, "Pancakes and Grill?"
