METALLICA & LOU REED: LULU

Sometimes controversial ideas on paper can become quite good in practice. When Metallica fans heard that an upcoming album featuring Lou Reed, many raised their concern. I myself haven't listened to an entire Metallica album since my early adolescence so my reaction was of a more curious nature. Well, on the upside, this album really surprised me. "Surprised" is an understatement. If I had walked into my room and seen Lars and James taking a shit into my schoolbag, I would've been less surprised. And I would have felt less violated.

Halfway into the first track, I was convinced that it was some kind of a joke. Then the second track came, then the third. The thing that most people criticize right off the bat is the vocals, but I'll put them aside for now. Let's start with the music. Most of the songs contain one single riff. It is as if they took unmemorable verse riffs from Load/Reload, and looped them for 8 minutes for each song. Three or four chords repeated for 8 minutes, honorable mention goes to "Mistress Dread" with a single chord build up riff that tricks the listener into thinking that something major is going to happen, but instead is repeated for 8 minutes. Single chord. What the hell? I would expect better composition from your average garage band that consist of 12 year-olds. The bass is barely audible so I can't say much about it. Well, and then there's drums. My god. This album includes some of the dullest, least creative drumming I've ever heard. They barely carry the riffs and and the fills and breaks are stupid and sloppy. So, the instrumental side of this "conceptual masterpiece" is a massive failure. Now, for the vocals, I'm going to say that they got experimental and creative instead of saying that they just didn't give a single fuck. It sound like Lou Reed is freestyle rapping over the instruments. The "singing" is not in sync with what the instruments are doing at any time and the lyrics are so stupid that making them up on the spot would not be an excuse good enough. And James takes the worst sentences and repeats them.

As some people point out, this album is very experimental, and I can agree on that. However, the nature of experiments is that some of them fail. Some of them fail catastrophically. This album is one of those failures. It may have a nice concept behind it and all, but if the music doesn't deliver, the album doesn't. I've got nothing against it being unusual, after all, this is a site dedicated to progressive music. The instrumental work, isn't unusual, but bland and unoriginal and that kills this album on a fundamental level. The singing is just the icing on the cake. Playing and audiobook over the instruments would've been a bold and experimental move too. And that would've been just as bad.

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