Metal Icons: Fighting Demons: “72 Seasons” by Metallica

metal icons
Fighting Demons: “72 Seasons” by Metallica

In 2019, a statement from Lars Ulrich, Kirk Hammett and Rob Trujillo sent Metallica fans into a frenzy. The three musicians canceled the band’s tour in Australia and New Zealand at the time, arguing that their frontman James Hetfield was back in rehab.

Almost four years later, the new album of the metal giants is coming out, which gives a little idea of ​​how Hetfield, whose addiction was actually considered by many fans to have been overcome, must have been doing back then. “72 Seasons” will be released this Friday (April 14) – and documents a fight with demons.

Even the opening song is a cracker of epic proportions. The title song “72 Seasons” lasts almost eight minutes and is mainly about one thing: “Wrath of man”, about anger. It’s about traumatization and the feeling of being haunted by the past.

The title of the album and opener refers “to the first 72 seasons”. The band means the first 18 years of a person’s life. “The first 18 years that form our real or false self. The concept that we were told by our parents “who we are”. A possible classification of which personalities we are,” Hetfield describes this time in the press release for new album.

“I think the most exciting thing about it is the continuous study of these beliefs and how they influence our perception of the world today,” says the 59-year-old, who according to media reports last year – after around 30 years together – filed for divorce from his wife. There are two options, says Hetfield: being “prisoners of childhood” – or freeing oneself from the “shackles we wear”.

A seemingly hopeless battle

The twelve songs on the album show this struggle for liberation – but leave great doubt that it will end well. “History must burn” sings an exceptionally powerful voice on this album, Hetfield, on “You Must Burn”. “I run – Still my shadows follow” is the title of the song “Shadows Follow”.

“Welcome to this life – Born into the fight” is a line in the previously released “Screaming Suicide” about dark thoughts of suicide.

“This rusted empire I own – Bleed as I rust on this throne” from the song “Crown Of Barbed Wire”. can also be read as Hetfield’s confrontation with his role as king of thrash metal, i.e. this particularly fast variety of metal.

“72 Seasons” doesn’t tell about a successfully completed battle, it takes the listener into a raging and seemingly hopeless battle. The eighth song “Chasing Light” is about the chase for the light, but begins and ends disillusioned with the sentence: “There’s no light”.

Dark and heavy

Even if the first, fast and powerful single “Lux Æterna” (with a running time of only 3.22 minutes by far the shortest song on the album) suggested a slightly different direction, according to the record company, this is the eleventh studio album of metal -giants has become a very heavy, gloomy complete work. One that not only demands time from the listener because of the comparatively long duration and the willingness to dive into these dark thoughts full of fear, hatred and self-destruction.

It certainly wasn’t a hit after hit album that metal fans could sing along to at festivals like 1991’s legendary Black album (the one with “Enter Sandman” and “Nothing Else Matters”). But “72 Seasons” has become so personal and touching, so honest and vulnerable that not only the biggest Metallica fans should take the time and get involved. Hetfield’s invitation: “Meet the ghosts where I reside”.

Those who persevere to the end will be rewarded with the epic “Inamorata”, possibly the strongest and, at more than eleven minutes, also the longest song on the album, in which Hetfield gives his fans a glimmer of hope and belief in overcoming personal misery: “Misery – She’s not what I’m living for”.

Metallica home page

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