 
Back in December Metallica celebrated 30 years
as a band and as a thank you to their loyal fans
they gave them a download code to download a track
EP called ‘Beyond Magnetic’ which
happens to be a collection of songs which were
written and recorded during the ‘Death Magnetic’
sessions but did make it onto them album in the
end.
Being a decent old skool heavy metal band Metallica
have now decided to release ‘Beyond Magnetic’
as a physical CD EP release we which is a fantastic
idea as most Metallica fans will be wanting to
snap the EP up to add to their ever growing Metallica
CD collection.
The tracks on ‘Beyond Magnetic’ sound
exactly like the sound the band went for during
the ‘Death Magnetic’ album and the
EP opens with ‘Hate Train’ a song
which opens with a massive Metallica style instrumental
introduction before the unique and much loved
vocals of frontman James Hetfield come in with
“Ooooooooooh Hate is a train”, before
the band continue to jam together with some heavy
riffs, constant drumming and fast paced basslines,
vocally the song goes through a slight melodic
journey but it’s the chorus where Hetfield
let’s off some steam.
‘Just A Bullet Away’ opens with a
great collection of guitar riffs that feature
enough bounce, speed and groove to please the
biggest Metallica fan as the song progresses the
guitar riffs go into a mad flurry of rhythm whilst
Lars Ulrich bangs his drums giving off an tinny
sound, after a good minute Hetfield comes in with
a set of strong and catchy vocals as the song
continues to progress past the 4 minute mark everything
gets a big serious and slow paced on the instrumental
side of things.
‘Hell And Back’ is a killer track
which see’s Metallica go back to the sound
they developed for ‘The Black Album’,
the track is extremely catchy from Hetfields vocals
all the way down to Lars Ulrich outstanding drum
beats and within seconds you will find yourself
chanting “Straight to hell and back”
in time with the vocals of Hetfield.
‘Rebel Of Babylon’ finishes the EP
and is also the longest track on the EP running
for well over 8minutes, the song opens in quite
a mellow way with more toned down near spoken
word vocals whilst the guitars, bass and drums
slowly up the pace before a massive riff picks
things up and see’s the song take on a thick
and exciting journey of instrumental madness where
the whole of Metallica come together and knock
out some fast and exciting instrumental work for
the best part of 7 minutes.
Overall many people will see ‘Beyond Magnetic’
a saviour after the bands recent release with
Lou Reed which ended up being a marmite type of
album where many people hated it and only a few
liked it, but in my eyes I believe that Metallica
are one of the best heavy metal bands around and
it is good to see that they have a creative side
and are not afraid to do what other bands are
afraid of, it does puzzle me why the tracks from
‘Beyond Magnetic’ never made it onto
the ‘Death Magnetic’ album but then
again there really was no room to fit another
30minutes of Metallica music onto an album which
already ran for over an hour.
5/5
Review by Trigger
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