Sadly, though you liked their speedier stuff starting with MoP, it kind of turned me off, and while I bought all their albums up to and including Metallica, I didn’t really like much in between. While Metallica the album was commercial, at least it was slower. I thought it was actually closer to RtL than anything between, too.

I dn’t listen to them much anymore except for their really early stuff, but I was still happy to find out that they’ve embraced online music and sell copies of all their live concerts online for relatively little money.

But on the other hand, “modern” metal, including the kinds of things you listed, do nothing for me either. In an effort to be fair, I plugged some of those names into last.fm and saw what it coughed up for me, and what I got was a whole bunch of reasonably talented guitarists saddled with vocalists that sound like they are trying to imitate either:

1. cookie monster,

2. Immortal (who did it far better), or

3. A hair-clogged shower drain.

When I go listen to old Metallica, or Megadeth, or Iron Maiden, what I get is awesome guitars on top of a vocalist who not only doesn’t suck, but is actively good. They sing more than scream, actual words come out and everything. And that makes me miss them all the more, and keep going back to those old albums like Master of Puppets even though I remain thoroughly disgusted with what Metallica has become.

(As I was writing this, last.fm came up with Ligeia, and kind of made a liar out of me, this guy is actually singing in between the throaty shrieks. But my point stands!)

Watching Some Kind of Monster made me feel the death of one of my top 5 bands. Watching them whine like a bunch of rich people with too much money who need a full time therapist just so they can stand being in the same room together! Here’s a hint guys: if you can’t stand being near each other, the music you make is probably gonna suck! And watching Bob Rock and Lars talk Kirk out of recording a solo because it didn’t sound like the current trends! Congratulations guys, Kirk was exactly right, St. Anger is now firmly dated with Limp Bizkit and Puddle of Mudd!

Not to mention offering Trujillo a million dollars to join the band. They are now exactly what their first 4 albums raged against, capitalist greed at it’s fullest level. In order to make metal, you must have a band that wants to play together just to play together. Not to make more money or redeem a reputation. Losing Cliff and even Jason were the worst things that ever happened to Metallica.

I hope the new album somehow is amazing and makes me feel like putting on my Ride the Lightning shirt again. But rehab, yoga, and suing your own fans is not a recipe for Metal Up Your Ass ™.

I signed up for missionmetallica.com back when it first opened and I check out the new content almost every day. What I’ve heard of this reboot album sounds pretty good so far, but like you said, we’ll wait and see. Regardless, I’m over the Napster thing, and I’ll forgive their new direction and continue to their earlier works which unarguably are some of the best metal ever recorded. Again, we’ll see what happens in September. I’ll be at their national tour either way, maybe more then once.