As part of 30 years of Metallica celebrations, the band released the newest single from their upcoming EP, Beyond Magnetic, for their longtime fans to rejoice with.
In a piece of promotional one-upmanship, Metallica sent out a free mp3 download of the song, “Just A Bullet Away”, to all the members of the Metallica Fan Club.
The song itself starts off encouragingly, with the usual medley of riffs merging into the basic song rhythm. In fact, at this point you’re enjoying yourself, rubbing your hands at what might evidently be a great song.
And then James Hetfield comes on, try to gnash into the microphone like old times. He tries, but there is something awfully amiss about his singing, starting at around the three-minute mark. It sort of throws you off, because it doesn’t sound natural. Sounds part contrived, part unwilling.
The guitaring is great, even with the cool progressive shift midway being effected sans glitches. You can tell they’re trying very hard to not sound stale, but it’s almost as if you can only do so much with the same group of people.
Now, go get your own opinion.
