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‘If Darkness Had A Son’ - Metallica’s NEW Single | Reaction, Thoughts & Analysis
54 Plays2 years ago
Metallica are back with another new single from their upcoming album, ‘72 Seasons’. Daria and Laz dig into the track and discuss what they like and don’t like.
You can also watch us on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC7mfJVCp_TzbPNZNMMemJuw
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Transcript
Introduction to Wives of Metal
00:00:08
Speaker
Hello and welcome back to Wives of Metal. My name is Daria. And I'm Laz. And we're a husband and wife team, both pro musicians talking all things heavy metal. And today, something very exciting we've got in store for you.
Buzz Around Metallica's New Single
00:00:20
Speaker
Metallica just dropped their new single, Yesterday. And it's called, If Darkness Had a Sun. I'm sure you've heard about it because everyone's buzzing about it. And we're here to discuss it today.
Balanced Review of If Darkness Had a Sun
00:00:35
Speaker
So I think it's only fair really to sort of talk about the positive and negative sides because it's a song review. You know, we've got to be impartial despite Metallica being one of our favorite bands. You know, we've got to give the credit where it's due and maybe give the criticism where it's due as well. To start off with, I think we just addressed the big elephant in the room. And for me, that's the drumming. Now I've always been.
00:00:55
Speaker
a defender of Lars Ulrich, because in the same way that I've always defended Ringo Starr from The Beatles, you know, people with Ringo's, like, oh, he's the least talented member of The Beatles, and the same with Lars. But in the end, they both do the job, and they both do the job that suits the music that it needs, really. And despite the issues with Lars and drumming in the past, you listen to albums like Master of Puppets and Anjustice for All, and the drumming on there is fantastic. I don't think anyone could have done any better.
00:01:23
Speaker
the personality of that drum of those drums is what makes the album so good. So credit where it's due to Lars for his whole career. In terms of this song, I just find it lacking a
Drumming Style Critique
00:01:34
Speaker
bit.
00:01:34
Speaker
um the first the first few seconds of the song it's just drums isn't it and it's odd it sounds like the drum productions are really weird it sounds like 80s drums sound like very over over produced um yeah a little bit just a bit synthetic to me to be honest yeah but you know what uh to be honest with you when i heard that just kick drum in the beginning yes production wise i completely agree with you but energy wise
00:02:00
Speaker
I was like, okay, cool. I'm ready for something like anthemic, maybe something like epic and cool. And it just, yeah, didn't go that way. Quite go that way. But it seems to me that the drums don't actually suit the rest of the songs, the rest of the song. So you've got these riffs that I mean, a lot of people online are comparing the riffs of this song to a harvester of sorrow and things like shortest straw from injustice for all. And I agree because the riffs, they're kind of death metal either kind of
00:02:31
Speaker
you know really kind of chuggy intricate rhythms sort of complexity as well and the drums are just not matching that if you go and listen to Harvester of Sorrow the drums are fantastic because they're chopping and changing you know four bars of this then a four bars of quick kick drums and you know it's it's forever evolving and the riffs are staying the same but the drums are the one that's changing and bringing more interest to the song but with this song
00:02:57
Speaker
It's just like they're not, they're not combining together the way they should. And I mean, I don't blame Lars. Maybe it was one of the other band members that said play a drum pattern like this. But in the end, you know, I think the drums is what's laying it down here. But now let's look at some positives.
Nostalgic Elements and Familiarity
00:03:15
Speaker
I think the riffs in the verses are really cool. Well, the verses and the main song riff, I'm really liking this very injustice for all that, you know, the chorus and the verses, I think they're very black album-esque.
00:03:27
Speaker
They're not simple, but you know what you're getting. It's kind of one riff that's repeating. It's not complicated, but that's the beauty of it, because it's very head-bang-y. Yes, yeah, yeah. Yeah, I can really enjoy this and get into it, but you know how you said that it's very black album-esque? Yes.
00:03:50
Speaker
When I was listening to it last night, I just had this feeling that I heard this before. I was like, where did I hear this before? And I was racking my brain. I was like, I told you. I was like, tell me, where did I hear this before? I think you hear elements of Wherever I May Roam from the Black Album. I think you've got some load elements in there. Maybe that comes down to the drumming and the simplicity of the drumming. I'm already mentioned the riffage is very similar to Unjustice for All. So I think
00:04:20
Speaker
You know, we said that the first song, Lux Eterna, was very much a throwback to the killer all days. Very fast, very short, very quick and done, you know, simple riffs.
00:04:30
Speaker
and Screaming Suicide, we kind of said that that was more reminiscent of their later albums, Death Magnetic and Hardwired. And here, I'm hearing Black Album. I've got it written here actually. I'm hearing the accessibility of the Black Album, because you've got sing-along choruses, easy-going verse
Song Analysis and Band Performance
00:04:47
Speaker
riffs. I'm hearing the intricacy and the complexity on the other side of this, or of the riffage from Anjustice for All. And then you've got the sort of garageness of the production, which is what reminds me of Load.
00:05:00
Speaker
Yeah, and I have to say, if we're talking about the prose of this track, I really love the chorus. Yeah, chorus is really cool. It's a great chorus. I really don't like the verse. And in comparison to the chorus, I'm like, yes, the chorus is here, you know? Just really, the verse doesn't do anything to me. But the chorus is great, and I think it's a very catchy melody indeed. Yeah, that's interesting, because I really like the verse. I thought it was something very dark and heavy about it. I know the first part of the verse is just one word, temptation.
00:05:29
Speaker
but there's kind of a darkness behind it there's a haunting lingering dissonance and darkness behind it and i like how it kind of sits on that word four times and then the verse kind of you know
00:05:42
Speaker
transcends into something a little more intricate, a little more involved, and then you get the remaining verse, and then it builds up to the chorus, which I like. See, it's all a matter of opinions, isn't it? It's all very subjective, and it's like, I just, I don't know, I just felt a little bit like it's lacking something, like it needs something else, and I was glad when the chorus was there.
00:06:05
Speaker
In terms of playing, like I said, we're hearing good riffs that are complex and not hard to play necessarily, you'd expect of Metallica. But performance wise, it all sounds great. I enjoyed Kirk's playing. His solo I thought was great. Nothing groundbreaking, nothing we haven't heard before, but just a standard Kirk's solo. You've got the nice movement and melodies intertwining followed by some speed picking and some fast showy off bits, which is what solo's for. So yeah, overall I thought it was okay.
00:06:34
Speaker
I think it's interesting to see what people were saying about it online yesterday because there was a lot of hate.
Is Metallica Recycling Ideas?
00:06:43
Speaker
We're asking the question, I don't think we've come up with a title for this video yet, but I think a good question to ask is, are Metallica running out of ideas? Because all we're hearing really is just recycled, repeated ideas. You could take each section of this song,
00:07:02
Speaker
You can take the chorus and stick it in the black album. You can take this bit and stick it in load. They just sound very similar. It's just such a shame because we are fans of Metallica. We love Metallica. And it just really breaks my heart to be saying stuff like this. But it doesn't feel fresh, does it? It feels like it's been recycled. That's all I can think of really. I think if you look at bands nowadays like Iron Maiden and Metallica, they're
00:07:30
Speaker
especially Iron Maiden. Iron Maiden have had a sound, a very distinctive sound from what I mean for their entire career, but through their career, they've gone up and down. They've done folky elements with Dance of Death. They've done sort of proper, the standard traditional heavy metal with Brave New World. They kind of fluctuated, but the last few, the last three, four, five Iron Maiden albums have had a very similar sound. And I wonder if we're now at this point with Metallica, because you had Death Magnetic, which I thought was a cracking album,
00:07:59
Speaker
Hardwired, which was good, and this feels like the next part on. But whereas Death Magnetic and Hardwired had their kind, had their own kind of, I don't know, I'm almost inclined to say hard rock. It was, it was, it was still heavy metal, obviously, but it was just standard rock that was a bit more intricate, intricate, a bit more complex. Whereas what we're hearing from these three new songs is we're hearing older Metallica ideas.
00:08:24
Speaker
So your point is correct. It isn't fresh. We're not being delivered anything new. But I do like that we're seeing old glimpses of older Metallica characteristics.
Riffs: Simplicity vs. Complexity
00:08:41
Speaker
So one thing I've noticed about all these songs is the simplicity in it.
00:08:46
Speaker
because even though this song's, you know, clapping in at six and a half minutes, there's actually only a handful of riffs that are used, and then they reorganize them. They use this for the verse, this for the chorus, then during the solo, they bring back the intro riff and put the chorus riff. It's not like, you know, if you listen to the song and Justice for All, the song goes everywhere, and there are so many riffs and so many directions, tempo changes, time changes. Here, it's all kind of staying on one line, and despite the length of the song, it's still a simple song, I think.
00:09:14
Speaker
And that is what I have liked about all of these songs that they've released. The simplicity, because I feel like we're still hearing good old Metallica. Is it the best stuff they've ever released? No, far from it in my opinion.
Favorites Among New Releases
00:09:28
Speaker
And that's my question to you. What do you think about all these new songs and which one's your favourite? Oh, interesting. I completely agree with you about the simplicity. That's definitely something that
00:09:41
Speaker
You know, we can definitely hear from song to song the in this three singles My favorite song interesting, you know, I thought about it yesterday actually like which one do I like the most?
00:09:56
Speaker
I think I have to go with Lux Eterna. I do. It just has that energy in it. Very simple but very catchy chorus like it's still ringing in my head. It's so easy to remember. I do like this chorus also but that's probably
00:10:15
Speaker
Pretty much all I liked in the song. I like the solo as well. You know, if we're gonna dissect it, I'm sure I'll find other things that I enjoyed. But ultimately, I think it has to be Lux Turner. What about you? This one's my favorite one so far because I like... I love Death Magnetic and I love that a lot of the songs on that album are quite long and also on Hardwired as well.
00:10:38
Speaker
But for me here, there is a familiarity. There is a familiarity with the riffs. I hear it and I can tell, you know, we said it's not fresh, but I can still tell. Oh, this is a riff I haven't heard before. Right. So although it reminds me of Anjustice Brawl, it's still a fresh idea of a riff. OK, OK. So we're hearing little characteristics drawn from this album, from that album, this one. It's not groundbreaking and we're not sat here going, oh, my God, Metallica have reinvented metal.
00:11:09
Speaker
It's still not fresh, but I still like that we're hearing glimpses of the old Metallica in the form of some riffage.
Anticipation for 72 Seasons
00:11:17
Speaker
So this is the third single coming up from the new album, 72 Seasons. I'm not entirely sure we'll get any more because the album's out in a month. A month and 10 days, I think. So very exciting stuff. I mean, how's the album shaping up for you from what you've heard, what you're thinking?
00:11:34
Speaker
I'm really excited like nothing can take the excitement away from me. That's exactly it because despite the fact that we've sat here and criticized elements of the songs that but you have to understand that's because I've been listening to Metallica for the best part of 15 years so when something when I hear a new song and it doesn't
00:11:54
Speaker
film me 100% with excitement, it's okay to criticize, it's okay to say, I don't really like this section, but you still can't contain my excitement, because it's metallic though, it's like, come on, a new metallic album, what's there not to be excited about?
Conclusion and Future Reviews
00:12:06
Speaker
So thank you so much for being here with us today, I hope you are as excited as we are for the upcoming album 72 Seasons, and we will be reviewing
00:12:17
Speaker
this album quite a bit so please stick around for that and give us a follow on our socials also and don't forget to subscribe to this channel for new videos.
00:12:28
Speaker
I think we're probably going to do multiple album reviews for this one, aren't we? We'll probably do a short, concise one of our overall feelings about the album, and then we'll probably do a longer, in-depth one track by track because, as we said, it's Metallica. So thank you for joining us. Don't forget that if you don't have time to sit and watch a video, we've got a dedicated podcast, which is just the audio taken from the video and available on all your podcasting platforms. Thanks for joining us and have a metal day. Have a lovely day. We will see you very soon.