Forty years after their record debut, Metallica returns on April 14 with 72 Seasons, a twelfth studio album that unearths the thrash metal roots of its origins and tries to polish the sound of the album “noir” (1991) which allowed the Californian quartet, as well as the heavy metal genre, to reach heights of popularity. Let’s talk blues, improvisation and his new solo career with guitarist Kirk Hammett, who, along with his old friends, will return on August 11 and 13 in concert at the Olympic Stadium, almost 31 years after the infamous riot .
” You know what ? I hadn’t really thought about this question, but I can assure you that it will be interesting to set foot in the Stadium again, “replies guitarist Kirk Hammett, joined in California, where he and his colleagues are rehearsing for the first concert. of the tour M72, scheduled for April 27 in Amsterdam. “It will be especially interesting to go back to the dressing rooms — what I still remember best is being imprisoned in there for six hours while waiting for things to calm down. »
The joint tour of two of the most important rock groups of the time, Metallica and Guns N’ Roses, took a violent turn on August 8, 1992; after the mid-concert, during the ballad Fade to Black (of Ride the Lightning, 1984), flames from a pyrotechnic reached James Hetfield’s left arm, ending the performance. But it was the long wait before Guns N ‘Roses arrived on stage for a concert interrupted by its singer, Axl Rose, that will have angered the audience. Images of overturned police cars, looting and fires had gone around the world.
Metallica was then the biggest rock phenomenon in the world, propelled by the popular and commercial success of the album with the black sleeve, released the previous year and containing the classics Enter Sandman, Nothing Else Matters And Sad But True. Since then, the quartet has often struggled to regain a foothold in the studio, alternating between the honorable (ReLoad1997) and the excruciating (St. Anger2003).
Without being a classic of the caliber of his first five albums, 72 Seasons is far from terrible. The group flies over the eras that defined its myth, from the excellent Lux Aeternaas abrasive and vigorous as the thrash blasts of Kill ‘Em All (1983), at the blandest Sleepwalk My Life Awaypale copy ofEnter Sandman. The title refers to childhood and adolescence, the period that defines the adult we will become; Hetfield signs texts with simple images that reveal the introspection he has imposed on himself in recent tumultuous years, as if he were going back to the past to better understand himself.
“This new album excites me because, strangely, it seems that it was the easiest to make and that it is the one that the fans will understand the best, perceives Hammett. You know, in the past, we released a few albums that were received with skepticism by the fans. It really happened, he said, laughing frankly. This time, the reaction is already positive, which took us by surprise, we did not expect so much enthusiasm. »
Throughout the album, Hammett’s playing is inspired, the one constant. Often, his solos save the compositions from shipwreck; they give others a good reason to be played in public. The man, it is obvious, seems to be reborn on 72 Seasons and, more than on previous albums, we recognize the colors of the blues in his playing, he is told. ” Yeah ! gets carried away the guitarist. You know, when I took up the guitar as a teenager, I was inspired a lot by the electric blues greats — Eric Clapton, freaking Robert Johnson, BB King, Jeff Beck, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Gary Moore. This way of playing is deeply rooted in me. That’s how I approached the new album, something close to what Angus Young has become. [d’AC/DC], this blues rock ideal of the late 1970s. And I didn’t really rehearse beforehand: I showed up in the studio and improvised lots of stuff, to keep the best of it. »
Exactly, about improvisation, Kirk Hammett recently declared to the magazine Loudwire to be tired of playing the famous solo of Master of Puppets (from the album of the same name, 1986). “Well, let me qualify what has been published a bit: it’s not so much the solo as such that bothers me, it’s the fact that I can’t improvise during this solo because the fans ask for it as is. I’ve been playing this solo for so many years that I don’t feel like a solo anymore, you know? For example, even the solo of creeping death from the album Ride the Lightning, recognized as one of the most difficult and spectacular in his repertoire, “is so much a part of the song that today it’s as if I were playing a score. I don’t get bored of playing solos, only of not being able to improvise more”.
This is how he relied on his instinct as a musician to record the solos of 72 Seasons and that he is now working to erect his solo work. After four decades of cannonading the notes within Metallica, Kirk Hammett, the metal guitar artificer, author of many classic riffs and solos revered by the hard rock community, launched last year Portalsa first personal mini-album very well received by the fans.
“Why did it take me so long to go solo? Because I needed to get sober before I did, you know? Previously, if I was not drunk, I was going to become one or I was in a day after, he confides. When I quit drinking, I suddenly found myself with a lot of free time, which I devoted to music. I started by writing two songs, then two others during the pandemic, and I thought it was too stupid to only hear them to my loved ones. So I played them to the guys [de Metallica] and to our team, who said to me: come on, let’s get this out. I did not expect that ! A full album is in the works, promises Hammett.
But in the meantime, the tour: two concerts per stopover, two different programs, “and we won’t always play the same songs in the same order at each stopover”, informs us the guitarist. Since next July we will mark the 40e anniversary of the release of your first album, Kill ‘Em All — the album that defined the thrash metal sound — do you plan to highlight it during the tour by performing a few other songs from it, in addition to the Seek & Destroy And whiplash that you never stopped playing? “Thank you for reminding me that it will be the anniversary, I had not even thought of it, admits Hammett. Maybe after our phone call, I could call the guys to tell them…”