The men with one face

There's been quite a humbug around Metallica lately, what with their new album coming out and all. Even YouTube's got them all over their frontpage today. I recently picked up The Metallicats again, too. Well, I said again, but in fact I never before listened to Metallica that much. There's no need (though there's certainly a lot of space) to describe how great their music is or in what way it affected me. Too many have done so before, I would only be able to repeat what has already been written. Perhaps I'll do so when I'll be short on impulses for blogging. Sorry for projecting silly plans :)

Death Magnetic, that's what they gonna call this new album, anyway. I haven't heard it yet, well, one single song. And that's way too little evidence to claim the album's good or bad or whatever. On the other hand, I've read that the band either intended or hoped (or both, maybe) it to be the same raw hell of a record as their "Black" album. It's the kind of an aim worth an acknowledgment - to re-visit your history, I mean. Yet, I think it can't be done. Or, at least, not to an ultimate measure. To me, the power of Metallica's early albums (well, early... they had already been in it for almost a decade when the Black album came out) lays in the energy of the youth; it's not the same making such a powerful statement with nearly twenty years stretched infinitely between now and then. Or, rather, if you're really sincere (and lucky!) the power stays but the statement changes. The essence of it.

Anyway, who am I to bitch about Metallica's intentions? Let the guys sort it out for themselves. I am sure interested what's it gonna be like. However, there's one shocking thing about nowadays James Hetfield that makes me really crazy. Reading an article, on Wikipedia I think it was, I saw an illustration photo of him (taken at this year's Leeds festival) and I realised how remarkably similar he is to Pete Seeger. And this mere fact gives me such positive creeps that I post this compare-us picture I made here on this blog. Well, you judge...

P.S.

Original Pete Seeger's photo comes from http://www.hrcr.org/

James Hetfield's one is from http://www.artistdirect.com/