Metallica guitarist Kirk Hammett has spoken out about the band’s upcoming album, which he says will be the group’s best record in 15 years. In an interview with Austrian Web site Krone.at — which was translated into English by Blabbermouth.net — the guitarist added that for the first time since 1988’s …And Justice For All, Metallica are bolting the doors and coming up with some brutal thrash riffs.
“It’s our eleventh studio album, but it feels like our sixth,” Hammett said. “It’s just a really spectacular range of songs. This time we’re not afraid to refer to our past music in order to create future music. People will see that we’ve kind of embraced our old vocabulary again and are using that vocabulary to express new things. I’m super excited to make this album, finish it and release it — ’cause then we can go out and play it to the people. We might have stretched our cores a little too much in the last fifteen years, but we’ve always came back to what we originally are and have been. I think with this album we’re definitely going a little more back into our roots.”
The yet untitled disc will include “a lot of really, really fast songs, [and] a whole lot of really heavy stuff,” Hammett said. “There are some songs on that album that are so fast, that [frontman] James [Hetfield] and I kinda look at each other and go, ‘Ouch! Our wrist are gonna fall off.’”
Also, the band are no longer down-tuning their instruments as they have on their past few offerings. Instead, they’re returning to the higher tuning they used on their first five albums. “Because we’ve done that, James’ voice sounds more like it did in the ’80s than it did in the ’90s,” Hammett said. “There’s a lot of changes that we’ve made, but I believe that they are all for the better.”
For the complete Q&A with Hammett, look no further.
And look no further for Metallica at their thrashiest; here’s the vid for “Whiplash”:
The only two bands that are going to kick maximun ass are: metallica, megadeth and testament. All 3 have are coming up with the new hottest thrashiest album ever made!!! ALL 3 RULE WILL RULE THE WORLD FROM NOW ON!
I have HIGH expectations for this new album, I think much like mustaine, metallica are going to put out an album that will silence the naysayers this year!!!!!!!
ALONG WITH TEMPO OF THE DAMNED, CHRIST ILLUSION, UNITED ABOMINATIONS, AND THE UPCOMING METALLICA ALBUM WE ARE STARTING TO SEE A RETURN OF REAL THRASH METAL!!!!!!!!
UP THE IRONS!!!!!!!!!