‘You Can’t Get Away With This if You’re Not Metallica’: Some Fans Aren’t Overjoyed With Metallica’s New Single, Here’s Why
“Every pop song that I’ve ever listened to is not even close to as repetitive as this.”
Metallica recently unveiled the third single from their eagerly-awaited eleventh studio album “72 Seasons”, but “If Darkness Had a Son” left some fans and critics pondering whether Lars Ulrich & Co. could have done a better job with the track.Following the punchy radio darling “Lux Æterna” and the lyrically bleak but nothing less upbeat “Screaming Suicide”, Metallica teased the third single’s introductory Teutonic beat via TikTok’s duet feature and unveiled the song shortly afterward.”If Darkness had a Son” offered healthy seven minutes of pummeling riff-work, a tight vocal performance by James Hetfield, some menacing bridges – and a whopping 40-second-long pentatonic solo by Kirk Hammett and his trusty wah pedal. Needless to say, many fans were delighted with Metallica’s latest outing, but some content creators and Twitter users didn’t hesitate to point out what they thought were the song’s weak spots.
Songwriting-oriented YouTuber Trey Xavier, for example, praised some of the song’s elements on their own – the riffs, the chorus, and particularly Papa Het’s pipes – but argued that Metallica dropped the ball while putting them together. The key issue that Xavier raises in his review is the song’s repetitiveness, which he illustrates by drawing attention to the lack of variation in the chorus he otherwise seems to like:
“Every single chorus sounds exactly identical. There’s no growth throughout the song. There’s no second guitar part during the chorus, there aren’t any harmonies aside from it being doubled an octave down… It feels like procedurally generated.”
Xavier compared the song to the oft-complained-about repetitiveness of pop tracks, claiming that in this matchup, pop repetition comes out as the winner:
“One of the prime complaints that I hear from metalheads about pop music is how repetitive it is. But every pop song that I’ve ever listened to is not even close to as repetitive as this. In pop, repetition is done in such a way that they’re adding things [with every repetition]…
“In this song, stuff repeats verbatim, and that, to me, is the worst kind of repetition. It’s repetition with no purpose.”
Another point that Xavier made was the missed opportunity for big payoffs at some of the song’s crucial points. Although he praised the song’s intro (for doing progressively enriched repetition right, among other things), the YouTuber notes that all the buildup is essentially wasted as it isn’t followed by a massive “drop”:
“I think they did a killer job in the beginning – ramping up the tension, getting me excited [for] the song, and then they just kind of blew the drop.”
At one point in the video, Xavier said:
“Anyone who’s a musician needs to know that you can’t get away with this kind of shit if you’re not Metallica… You can get away with this unless, no matter what you do, people will listen to what you’re putting out.”
Michael Kupris of “Become the Knight” YouTube channel and prog metal project claimed that the singles so far released for “72 Seasons” got “progressively worse, and did not have the strongest starting point.”
Kupris similarly criticized the song’s repetitiveness and perceived lack of payoff following the lengthy buildups, but also didn’t have anything good to say about Kirk Hammett’s solo, claiming that the guitarist “has run out of ideas as well.”
In fact, the only things that he seems to like are the bridge’s riffs and the rhythmic break they provide. If you want to listen to the exasperated Michael Kupris going through the reasons why he thinks the song is subpar, you can do so below; otherwise, we’ll single out a key piece of constructive criticism that the YouTuber and musician offers in the beginning:
“If you’re trying to make a mood piece where you get your audience enveloped in a meditative or trance-like state, you gotta focus on timbres, transience, and dynamics, because that’s what sells things like this. This is so modern-metal-compressed that I don’t think it would accentuate that sound or style very well.”
Scott over at the Shred YouTube channel praised several of the song’s elements, such as the introductory “death march”, some of the stronger “melodic” hooks, the guitars’ chromaticism and subtle embellishments such as the bass effect at the song’s very end, but criticized the dissonance between Kirk’s solo and James Hetfield’s rhythm guitar and the song’s perceived lack of focus. In conclusion, he said:
“Overall, the arrangement is a bit sluggish. They needed to make the intro shorter – they came back to it before the second verse, and that was way too much. [The song] could use a bit more dynamic range in terms of key changes.”
Over on Twitter, many fans shared their excitement with the new song, but some also drew attention to the parts they thought were subpar, highlighting similar talking points to what was mentioned above. You can check out some of those reactions below.
My main criticism atp with If Darkness Had a Son is that I think it’s way longer than it needed to be? It gets a little repetitive/unnecessary and I feel would’ve had more of a punch if it was shorter. Definitely not a bad track though from Metallica and I think it’ll grow on me
If Eye of the Beholder was made in 2023 this is what it’d be. Song is mid, missing something, just like Eye of the beholder, except eye of the beholder had a cooler Intro
What is going on with Kirk? This solo is not even in the scale, just bluesy pentatonics with no build up, just dry stuff. He has the chops but rather stay in comfort land. Also guitars are so water down that enters in hard rock territory. I respect their longevity but still…
Hate to be that guy but it’s the drums. Feels like a lot of missed potential. Just having the kicks throw in a quick double here and there during the galloping riff would do a lot.
I liked the majority of what was on the last two albums (Hardwired was just too long, it ran out of steam). I haven’t heard anything in these new tracks that is a patch on the best stuff on Hardwired. These are filler at best.
