The Day That Never Comes

August 21st. The day Metallica’s first single from their upcoming new album was released. Metallica took an immense gamble by creating the amount of hype they did while making this album. Being an avid Metallica fan I too was easily pulled into this vortex of the hype created by the band. Eventually though I thought by creating the hype that Metallica had indeed made a mistake because by doing that they had raised the expectations of the fans tenfold and if they made a weak album they would be buried under the disappointment of the fans. After a weak last album I pretty much thought that by bearing the two-edged sword called hype they indeed had the sharper side pointing towards themselves.

Finally, the test to all what they had done in the last year and a half had come down to this. This single by the name of “The Day That Never Comes” which was released just a few minutes back and I hear it once again for the third time as I write this review. Excitement as well as the fear of disappointment consumed me as I put on this track, which by the way can be heard at their official site.

The track begins with a slow ballad like intro with the drums soon coming in shortly after. The track structure wise is almost like their extremely famous track “One”. It starts off slowly with heavy parts in between and the whole band going all out nuts near the end. This band has definitely returned to its old days as it includes riffs sounding similar to “Orion” as well as the ever famous machine gun riffs of “One”. The last 3 minutes of this track starting from the machine gun riffs I just mentioned are nothing less that pure bliss. A complex song structure, fast paced riffs and bass lines and a plethora of clean solos near the end put an end to the speculation that “old Metallica” are dead. They sure as hell aren’t.

Yes, James isn't in his twenties anymore and doesn't sound as good as he did earlier but Rob Trujillio and Kirk complete him by doing great jobs at the bass and electric guitars respectively. Kirk has proved his critics wrong by creating a solo which has come right out of the top drawer and sounds like something that would be there on "... And Justice For All."

Extremely heavy, extremely orgasmic and extremely satisfying is what as a Metallica fan is all I can say. If there are more tracks like these on the upcoming album then this will be ranked right up there with one of the band’s best album.