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Review |
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When Lou Reed and Metallica announced that they
were working together on an album there was a mixed
reaction from fans of both artists but at the same
time Metallica fans were happy at the prospect of
hearing new Metallica material a lot sooner than
anticipated.
So ‘Lulu’ is an album that has been
in the works for a while and is based around two
plays originally written by the German playwright
Frank Wedekind, the album runs for over 90 minutes
and spans two CD’s with 6tracks gracing
the first CD and 4 gracing the second, musically
the instrumental work has been fully composed
by Metallica and features some legendary moments
which Metallica fans will love whilst vocally
Lou Reed takes the lead vocals and mostly covers
them in a spoken word way which will not please
most Metallica fans but the saving grace for them
is the moments where James Hetfield comes in with
backing vocals but sadly this doesn’t happen
often enough.
The album opens with ‘Brandenburg Gate’
which starts off with some acoustic arrangements
and moments later Lou Reed comes in with his spoken
word vocals of “I would cut my legs and
tits off When I think of Boris Karloff and Kinski
In the dark of the moon”, as the song progresses
further Lou Reed takes you on a further crazy
adventure with his Social Distortion-esque vocals
whilst James Hetfield blurts out “Small
Town Girl” every 20seconds and this is how
the song runs for the next 4minutes but surprisingly
it works quite well.
‘The View’ is an very interesting
song it opens with some slow paced guitar riffs
whilst Reed takes you on a poetic journey with
his mono-tone vocals, everything sounds very samey
for the first couple of minutes but things soon
get exciting when James Hetfield comes in with
some much needed lively vocals with lyrics of
“I am the root, I am the progress, I’m
the aggressor, I am the tablet, These ten Stories”
and from this moment this is the formula of the
song Reed will share his spoken word vocals and
then a minute later Hetfield will repeat the same
vocals over and over with his vocals becoming
more powerful and aggressive towards the climax
of the song, whilst the rest of Metallica club
together for some tasty fast paced instrumental
work.
‘Pumpin Blood’ opens with some true
Metallica style riffs and drum beats but as soon
as Reed’s vocals come in here the song goes
downhill because it’s just to laid back
with the instrumental work even grounding to a
halt a couple of time throughout the song, the
only saving grace is when Lars Ulrich gets going
with his drumming as he really makes a positive
impact here.
I have to say that ‘Lulu’ is one
of the hardest albums I have ever found myself
listening to and it is for a number of reasons
first of all Metallica and Lou Reed really are
an odd combination and it shows even more as the
album progresses , secondly the vocals of Lou
Reed are to laid back for my liking and gives
the album a big easy listening vibe that’s
not actually that easy to listen to and lastly
the fact that the album runs for over 90 minutes
with the closing track ‘Junior Dad’
running for a mammoth 19minutes just makes everything
that little bit harder to take in as with this
big mix ‘Lulu’ is a gruelling album
to get through.
Metallica claim that ‘Lulu’ is one
of the most exciting things they have ever worked
on whilst most Metallica fans wished that ‘Lulu’
never happened and that Metallica worked on a
new studio album instead, but in all honestly
‘Lulu’ is not as bad as some make
it out to be, as there are some really good moments
such as the extremely creative and controversial
lyrics, the classic Metallica guitar riffs, basslines
and drum beats and not to forget the classic strong
sounding vocals from James Hetfield but the big
downside is that these positive points are all
totally outweighed by the fact that Metallica
and Lou Reed do not go together and ‘Lulu’
should be a lesson learned for both artists.
3/5
Review by Trigger |
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| Band
Members |
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Lou Reed
James Hetfield
Lars Ulrich
Kirk Hammett
Robert Trujillo |
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| Track
Listing |
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Disc 1
1. Brandenburg Gate
2. The View
3. Pumping Blood
4. Mistress Dread
5. Iced Honey
6. Cheat On Me
Disc 2
7. Frustration
8. Little Dog
9. Dragon
10. Junior Dad
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| Band
Related Links |
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| Review
Score Code |
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- Top Cheese
- Brilliant
- Pretty damn good
- Ok I guess
-
What Was That? |
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