As I've said, the Pitchfork review of Death Magnetic nails it. Everything said in the way of music description, negative and positive, in the review is spot on.

However, my overall thoughts aren't as negative. I'm useless at reviewing, so I'll give you my notes in dot point form:

• I like it more than everything new they've released since the Black album (Load, Reload and St. Anger)
• I really like All Nightmare Long and kinda like That Was Just Your Life and The Judas Kiss.
• Unforgiven III is predictably the worst song on the album by far, and goes the longest way to showing Metallica have lost their feel of melodic song writing, the last spurt of which resulted in the original Unforgiven and Nothing Else Matters... and Mama Said.
• Comparisons to Master Of Puppets and ...And Justice For All are wrong and made by deaf people. The album sounds most like Load (played faster) and St. Anger (with proper production and editing).
• There are some killer riffs, but most still have that duggadugga country feel to them so present in Load and Reload. Playing it faster doesn't make it metal.
• James sings far better in this key, but it's still off a little in places, and the lyrics are dire.
• Lars' drums are too loud. And simplistic. He really likes that snare. And the cymbals just kind of wash over everything. Combined with the TURN IT ALL UP TO HELL production, it starts to sound a bit like static.
• Song composition is all over the place. Intros are pointless, solos seemed tacked on, riffs change constantly and randomly and irritatingly, killing almost all songs on the album.
• I'm both confused and understanding about the first single (by that, I mean the song with the video), The Day That Never Comes. It has a great chorus (in a Load kind of way) but as I've said... sticking riffs together doesn't make a song, it makes a jam.

When St. Anger came out I liked it. Not for the music, but for the balls behind it. As a companion piece to Some Kind Of Monster it's genius. I love that a huge metal band came out with a CD that sounds like they stuck bits together from a jam tape and then had the balls to make four/five MTV videos for it. It's like some big art project. Some Kind Of Monster explains the album 100%. It's what they could throw together from the sessions of a band falling apart. That doesn't make it good, but it makes it interesting.

As for the music, I remember thinking that if they'd just had a real producer, and not almost melted down, some of it might have sounded OK. Maybe if someone covered the songs, cut them down to a few minutes?

Death Magnetic puts St. Anger right in it's place. Death Magnetic is perhaps St. Anger properly produced, with a little bit of "play faster" nudging.

One thing must be made clear though... it's not metal.

It's hard rock played fast.

The "metal" goal posts have moved on to Slayer, Sepultura and thousands of bands who formed since Metallica and left Metallica behind. These days Hinder and Nickleback sound like Black. That doesn't make them metal does it?

If you give up on Metallica being metal, not since Black, they're easier to take.

I remember being confused that anyone could think Guns'n'Roses were metal. They're rock. In fact, they're almost country-rock. At the time, I remember thinking that there is no way Metallica could lose that metal crown. They have. Or did, a decade and a half ago.

I was once surprised when I looked into Malcolm Turnbull's politics, just before the 2007 election.

Malcolm Turnbull is described by the media as a "small l liberal".

His Wikipedia page explains a little of what this means. He voted in favour of relaxing restrictions on RU486, voted for stem cell research and is strongly in favour of Australia becoming a republic. Wikipedia indicates vaguely that he has also been critical of Peter Costello's handling of the economy, although it doesn't go into details. Malcolm was also strongly in favour of ratifying Kyoto, and still is.

Before the 2007, and the 2004 election, he promised to grant same-sex couples "death benefits in Commonwealth superannuation schemes." Without John Howard leading, perhaps he would extend this to remove all discriminatory laws as the ALP have promised to do (except marriage). Or perhaps it was an empty lie. We shall see.

Either way, a Liberal party ruled by someone such as Malcolm would be a very very different beast to one run by Howard and Costello.

Malcolm Turnbull is the new leader of the Opposition, beating "head on a stick" Nelson 45 to 41. Peter "read my book it's good" Costello voted for Nelson.